CAG pulls up IAF for helicopter deal

A Chinook heavy lift helicopter and an Apache chopper (top).  

Says it favoured a particular vendor

The Comptroller and Auditor General in its report has pulled up the Indian Air Force (IAF) for framing its service specifications in the tenders for heavy lift and attack helicopters to suit “products of a particular vendor.” The IAF had chosen Chinook and Apache helicopters of Boeing from an evaluation process. The deliveries will begin this year.

The CAG also found in the audit that for the Apache attack helicopters, the United States government was supplying missiles from their stock whose “normal life of 10 years has expired.”

“Audit noted that in case of acquisition of Apache Attack Helicopters and Chinook Heavy Lift Helicopters, the Air Staff Qualitative Requirements (ASQR) were aligned to products of a particular vendor,” the federal auditor said in the report tabled in the Parliament on Wednesday.

The report noted that IAF drafted the ASQR by copying the technical specifications of products available in the market and also based on inputs provided by vendors in response to Request for Information issued to them.

The Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) envisages RFI as a process for gathering information about the product and its vendors so as to formulate broader requirements which could facilitate a more competitive and smoother tendering process, the report noted and added that audit noted that in many cases the process of RFI was used to “engage in consultation with one or two vendors and modify the existing ASQR based on their feedback.”

Under the $3 bn deal in September 2015, India had contracted 22 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters and 15 CH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopters from Boeing through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales programme. Deliveries are set to commence later this year and completed by mid-2020.

As per specifications, the rockets and missiles for the Apache helicopters should have a minimum life of 10 years extendable to 20 years. The missiles were to be delivered in 2018. “Thus Ministry had procured missiles which were 14 to 16-year-old at the time of delivery,” the report stated.