Defence Ministry on OFB

A.K. Antony on Monday reviewed the functioning of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), including plans to get its much-delayed Nalanda factory on stream.

The factory was envisaged over a decade ago for manufacturing ammunition for the 155 mm field guns, but the plan ran into problems: first when South African firm Denel was blacklisted and this year when the Israeli Military Industry (IMI) received similar treatment after its name figured in a Central Bureau of Investigation case.

The Minister was informed by the OFB that a pilot batch of the Bi-modular Charge System modules that the factory is to produce have been assembled at Nalanda in collaboration with the Defence Research and Development Organisation and it will soon be offered to the Army for trials.

The OFB, Ministry officials said, told Mr. Antony that plant for bulk production would be set up through indigenous resources at a lesser cost. According to reports, the IMI was to set up the plant at a cost of Rs. 1,200 crore.

Incidentally, with the government barring the IMI from doing business with the OFB and the Defence Ministry earlier this year for a period of six years, the Board encashed the Rs. 224 crore bank guarantee provided by the Israeli firm on the grounds that there was a breach of the “integrity pact'' it signed for securing the contract after winning a competitive bid.

The OFB said it achieved a turnover of Rs. 12,391 crore in the last financial year, a 10.48 per cent increase over the Rs. 11,215 crore turnover in 2010-11.

The OFB is planning to invest Rs 15,764 crore to modernise its 39 factories and augment their capacities in the 12 Plan period. This is a sharp hike, compared to Rs. 2,953 crore for the same task in the previous Plan period.

During the recent past, the government sanctioned some major projects, including a Rs. 971 crore investment to augment the capacity of T-90 tanks from 100 to 140 tanks; a Rs. 378 crore plan to increase the capacity of manufacturing large calibre weapons; and Rs. 368 crore to augment the capacity of spares for the T-72 and T-90 tanks

cruise missile launching

India today successfully carried out the maiden test firing of the over 290 km-range submarine-launched version of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile in the Bay of Bengal becoming the first country in the world to have this capability.
The submarine-launched version of BrahMos was successfully test fired from an underwater pontoon near here, BrahMos CEO A Sivathanu Pillai said.
This is the first test firing of an underwater supersonic cruise missile anywhere in the world and the missile travelled its complete range of over 290 kms, he said.
He said the performance of the missile during the test launch was "perfect".
Ship and ground-launched versions of the missile have been successfully tested and put into service with the Indian Army and the Navy.
The maiden test of the submarine-launched version of BrahMos comes over a week after the indigenously built long-range subsonic cruise missile Nirbhay failed to hit its target in its first test.
"BrahMos missile is fully ready for fitment in submarines in vertical launch configuration which will make the platform one of the most powerful weapon platforms in the world," Pillai said.
Defence Minister A K Antony congratulated DRDO scientists and Russian specialists along with officers of the Indian Navy associated with the project for successful test launch of missile from an underwater platform.

7th CPC

7th CPC News : Central Minister in favour of seventh pay commission

Ajay Maken backs cry for seventh pay panel

New Delhi : With a little over a year to go before the next general election, the demand for a Seventh Pay Commission has started to gather momentum. Union housing and urban poverty alleviation minister Ajay Maken has taken the lead in endorsing the Central government employees' request for setting up of the new pay panel, citing the erosion of real wages due to high inflation since implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations.

In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Manmohon Singh, Maken underlined how every pay panel since the Second Pay Commission, barring the Sixth Pay Commission, were set up in the third year of the decade. "We are again in the third year of the ongoing decade and Central government employees are justifiably looking forward to the Seventh Pay Commission," he said.

Recalling that it was under Singh that the last pay panel was set up in 2005, after the NDA government failed to do so in 2003, Maken, in the communication dated March 14, requested that a decision be "taken on priority" for constitution of the  Seventh Pay Commission. A notification for constitution of the 7th Central Pay Commission is the need of the hour, which is bound to have bearing upon about 20 million employees," he said.

Maken concluded by emphasizing that setting up of the new pay panel was in "larger interest of government employees as well as the (Congress) party".

Army’s got it all wrong

 

R Sundaram.

The furore over the leakage of the letter by the retired General V.K. Singh to the Prime Minister has faded from our memory faster than the fizz in a soda bottle. In that letter, the General had raised his concerns about the state of the preparedness in terms of weapons, ammunition and other fighting equipment.

According to newspapers the General was “miffed” with Ordnance Factories which produce weapons and other fighting materials. But no one thought it fit to ask the Factories what their side of the story is. If the Factories have been so remiss in discharging their remit in depth, range and quality as portrayed, there is every reason to seriously consider winding up this vast organisation. It may be of interest to know here that these factories produced $2.4-billion worth of equipment last fiscal for the armed forces and paramilitary forces, duly checked and accepted by an independent quality assurance organisation.

The Army’s fault

The Army’s own contribution to the current state of affairs cannot be denied. Although originally Russian technology was used for making this equipment, the Army found the claims of a superior product by the now-blacklisted Israeli Military Industries (IMI) attractive. It imported 46,000 rounds seven years ago and found them good. Later, in 2006, the Ordnance Factory Board started the first phase of a two step co-production with IMI. Strangely, however, it took unconscionably four long years for the Army to give bulk production clearance for the Board’s product, although all the critical components were from Israel. The Comptroller and Auditor General has observed this, too.

Another important aspect highlighted by the retired General was the incident of bursting of gun barrels of T-72 tanks. Although these have been produced in the erstwhile USSR and East European countries since early eighties in huge quantities, the problem dogged this product for long. In India, too, this occurred in barrels of both foreign and indigenous origins. Getting inputs from Russia to make improvements as implemented over there took more than half a dozen delegation-level meetings between the two countries. Although after valiant efforts some details of heat-treatment processes were obtained and implemented, there is no knowing that the problem has, indeed, been licked, since Russia does not share ‘know why’.

Meanwhile, the Army appears to believe that one of the causes may be the strength of explosives in the indigenously produced high explosive ammunition. This is funny since there is no other ammunition available to be used in training or trials, as there is no stock of anti-tank ammunition which is what compelled the General to write in the first place.

Difficult Russians

Although Russia has been our mainstay in defence equipment, it has proved to be a difficult partner at the operating level. Meetings to sort out technical problems or supply deficiencies routinely entail inordinate delay. One wonders whether Russia has ever attempted modernising its documentation or logistics to 21{+s}{+t} century standards. Price negotiations with Russian suppliers, too, are a nightmare. During delegation-level meetings lasting a week they would always come up with a quotidian formulation such as “reply would be given in the established manner”. There is rarely any elemental cost data or indices made available to back their arguments. Unless, in the long haul, the Army sincerely believes in indigenous development, whether from public or private sector, there may not be any guarantee against recurrence of such situations.

(The author is a former member, Ordnance Factories.)

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IAF, defence accounts officers to help CBI probe chopper deal

New Delhi, Mar 3, 2013 (PTI)

Officials from Indian Air Force (IAF) and Defence Accounts Department will join a special CBI team formed to probe the allegation of payment of kickbacks in the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP helicopter deal as the investigating agency prepares to examine suspects named in its Preliminary Enquiry (PE).

Sources in the agency said an IAF officer would be joining the CBI team along with some officials from the Controller General of Defence Accounts to examine the documents collected from Milan as well as from Italian-based Finmeccanica, parent company of AgustaWestland helicopter.

The special CBI team, to be assisted by the Income Tax department sleuths as well, will study the necessity of changing the specification of the helicopter besides the money trail, they said.

Former IAF chief S P Tyagi and his three cousins are among 11 individuals named in the PE registered by the CBI on February 24 besides four companies.

Suspected European middlemen Carlo Garosa, Christian Michel and Guido Haschkhe, advocate Gautam Khaitan formerly associated with Aeromatrix and its CEO Praveen Bakshi, former Finmeccanica Chairman Giuseppe Orsi, former AgustaWestland CEO Bruno Spagnolini, have also been named.

The CBI will examine some of the officials from the Aeromatrix and IDS Infotech, the sources said, adding that Tyagis including Julie, Dosca and Sanjeev Tyagi, cousins of former IAF chief, will be questioned at a later stage.

The Defence Ministry has handed over the documents to the CBI which includes replies from the AgustaWestland to its show cause notice issued besides some internal communication of the ministry pertaining to the deal.

 

 

   

 

DRDO scientist held in terror plot set to be freed, MoD sacks him

 

On the eve of his release, the Defence ministry has terminated the services of Aijaz Ahmed Mirza, 25, a junior research scientist at the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) who was arrested by the Bangalore police in an alleged terrorism plot last August. Mirza is set to be released on bail next week following the special court's order, as the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has not filed a chargesheet against him.

Mirza's father, Abdul Rauf Mirza, 57, a Railways employee, said they received the termination letter, dated February 12, a couple of weeks ago.
"We got a letter saying his services as a junior research fellow at the DRDO's Centre for Airborne Systems was being terminated as of February 12, they have not given any particular reason. I don't know what to do about it. My son will be released in a couple of days. I will discuss what he wants to do — whether he wants to appeal the termination or not,'' he said.
Mirza was awarded a junior research fellowship by the DRDO on December 15, 2011, after an extensive screening process that included background checks. He took up the fellowship on January 9, 2012.
Mirza, who hails from Hubli in North Karnataka, shared a small house in Bangalore with his younger brother Shoaib Ahmed Mirza, 23, a student of a post-graduate computer applications degree course, and four other youths from Hubli. All six youths were arrested on August 29 by the Bangalore Police for alleged terror links