Howitzer deal put on hold till Army files report

[bhagat]

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NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Defence has sought answers from the Army on the leak of the trial report of ultra light howitzers as an embarrassed A K Antony on Tuesday sought to reassure that acquisitions would not be allowed to be manipulated.

This is the second case in recent months when documents relating to a high-ticket deal came out of the realm of secrecy exposing vulnerability of acquisition process in which billions are at stake. In the first case, the MoD itself was responsible when a file relating to IAF’s multi-role combat jet contract was found roadside. Though inquiry revealed the file did not contain any confidential information that could have jeopardised an estimated $11 billion deal, it established that rules of handling sensitive documents were flouted.

The Defence Minister has now asked its official to be more careful. The MoD officials said howitzer acquisition process would come to a halt until conclusion of Army’s high level probe. This meant yet another setback for Army’s plan to add new artillery to compensate for gun drought since Bofors scandal broke out

In January, Army chief V K Singh had hoped that 145 M777 ultra-light howitzers, manufactured by BAE Systems and offered through the foreign military sales by the US for $647 million, would be acquired within this year. The Army officials tried to explain that the five pages from a comprehensive trial report were not enough to give an impression about the results.

During the trials, Indian ammunition was fired from the guns, said officials. What has come to light is the fact that by circulating unsigned papers, an attempt was being made to get the contract scrapped. A similar attempt was made around three months ago when some media persons received unsigned documents claiming that the M777 deal should not be finalised as the gun was not required by the Army.

The government had decided to take the US offer of direct sale after another vendor, Singapore Technologies, was black-listed on allegations of corruption.

Howitzer deal put on hold till Army files repor | Howitzer deal | AK Antony | Indian Express

[tallboy123]

another year to file report

[The HBS Guy]

OH NO NOT AGAIN!

[ajtr]

^^ well thats what the interested party wanted by leaking this report through their lobbyist in army...who has done it.Its quite clear report cant be leaked without an insider in the army.IA is dotted with moles.

[Archie]

^^ well thats what the interested party wanted by leaking this report through their lobbyist in army...who has done it.Its quite clear report cant be leaked without an insider in the army.IA is dotted with moles.

My guess is that the leaks are the responsibility of Singapore Technologies whose Pegasus Howitzer was competing with M777 Howitzer for the deal for 145 Guns
Now Singapore Technologies had been Blacklisted for trying to bribe members of Ordinance factories Board , and they had complained that trials of M777 guns were started without Inviting them .
My guess is that they could have bribed some lower level staff to get access to some papers related to trials
My guess is that 5 pages out of a comprehensive report cannot give details about the trial

And i am also not sure that it will cause any significant delay to acquisition process since it involves US govt also and the fact that Army probe into the leaks will not take as much time as say Govt probes

And By the way Nice to see u use ur true flag once in a while AJTR , i had started to believe that AJTR was short for Arundati Roy

[Indian-Devil]

Its really a bad news, it will again delay Howitzer purchase program for Indian Army.

[Kinetic]

I am sure that in my life time I will not see India buying any new artillery. The only hope is DRDO recently started developing one. Again may be at that time the imported guns will be suddenly 'ready'!

Every project goes on swiftly whether tank, missiles, aircraft etc don't know what is happening special about artillery.

[KS]

OMFG !!! Not again and not especially the M777.

[angeldemon_007]

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Its just Light howitzer which as far as i know constitute the smallest number in the group of orders for different types of guns. But still its a bad news, atleast we should have started the induction.