http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Defence-ministry-blacklists-7-firms/articleshow/4622346.cms
The Times Of India, 6 Jun 2009
NEW DELHI: With former Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) chairman
Sudipto Ghosh being arrested by CBI recently in a major defence
scandal, the defence ministry has blacklisted seven companies,
including major ones from Israel, Singapore and Poland,
named in the case.
Keen to curb the widespread murky wheeling and dealing in arms
deals, defence minister A K Antony has directed that all
acquisition cases and projects in the pipeline with the seven
companies "be put on hold till further orders".
While the foreign firms are Israeli Military Industries
(IMI),Singapore
Technology, Media Architects (Singapore) and BVT
Poland, the Indian ones are HYT Engineering, R K Machine Tools and
T S Kishan and Company Pvt Ltd.
All the seven firms were named in the CBI FIR registered on May
17 against Ghosh, M S Sawhney, a Vasant Vihar-based defence dealer,
Ramesh Nambiar, an additional general manager with Air India, and
three middlemen, Ashish Bose, Pradeep Rana and Kanhai Lal
Das.
IMI, incidentally, had inked a contract with OFB, worth around Rs
1,200 crore, to set up an ordnance complex of five plants at
Nalanda in Bihar, in the run-up to the general elections in
March.
The plants were to manufacture 155mm Bi-Modular Charge Systems
(BMCS) and other propellant charges for heavy calibre artillery
ammunition for Army's Bofors howitzers and other guns.
Singapore Technology, one
of the biggest aerospace and land systems company in Asia, in turn,
was a strong contender in tenders for 155mm artillery guns for
Army.
While Media Architects is said to be supplying video-editing
software to Indian armed forces, BVT Poland is said to be engaged
in marine engineering and naval architecture.
As for the Indian companies, T S Kishan and Company apparently
supplies spares and accessories for Army's T-72 and T-90S
main-battle tanks, while Pune-based HYT Engineering provides some
components of missiles produced within the country. Ludhiana-based
R K Machine Tools, in turn, supplies spares for vehicles and
machinery produced by Defence PSU Bharat Earth Movers Ltd.
"While CBI is yet to file the chargesheet, there is concrete
evidence about money transfers to personal accounts of the persons
named in the FIR. The defence ministry has sought a detailed list
of equipment and material that these blacklisted companies provided
to the armed forces. It is still awaited," said an official.
The blacklisting of the seven companies comes four years after the
South African arms firm, Denel, was banned for allegedly paying Rs
20 crore as kickbacks in five contracts for supply of 700
anti-material rifles and ammunition as well as transfer of
technology to OFB.
But, interestingly enough, Israeli Aerospace Industries and Rafael,
named in the kickbacks case in the original Rs 1,160-crore Barak-I
anti-missile defence system deal inked in 2000, have not been
blacklisted on the ground that it would be "counter-productive" due
to the several crucial defence projects underway with them.
The Nalanda project, on its part, has had a convoluted past. The
project was first kicked off during George Fernandes' tenure as
defence minister in the NDA regime, with the proposed factory
complex at Rajgir in Nalanda located in his earlier Lok Sabha
constituency.
Later, the NDA regime identified Denel for the Nalanda project. But
after Denel's blacklisting, the construction of the Nalanda
complex, on which an initial Rs 306 crore was spent, had come to a
grinding halt.
The UPA government, after coming to office, later constituted an
"expert committee" to review the entire project. Subsequently, a
global tender was floated after the green signal from the "expert
committee" and the Cabinet Committee on Security had approved IMI's
participation in January this year.
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