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HAL’s Light Combat Aircraft project to come under IAF control

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Dinakar Peri   NEW DELHI, AUGUST 04, 2018 THE HINDU

 

Slow takeoff: The development of the Tejas-Mk 1A with specific enhancements has been delayed.

To prevent time and cost overruns, the IAF will soon have effective control over India’s indigenous LCA programme
The government is poised to hand over control of the Bengaluru division of State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to the Indian Air Force (IAF). This is to prevent more time and cost overruns on the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) project. This comes at a particularly crucial time as the next phase of the LCA project, development of the MK2 variant, as well as the country’s next fighter aircraft programme, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), begin to take shape.

“The government has given the go ahead to hand over the entire Bengaluru complex of HAL to the IAF. With this, the fixed wing aircraft division will come under the IAF. The modalities are being worked out,” an official source told this reporter of the process that may take a few months.

HAL resists
HAL manufactures and assembles a range of aircraft and helicopters. However, it has faced criticism for its time and cost overruns and lack of professionalism in project execution. HAL has opposed this move for a long time, fearing erosion of its autonomy.

The LCA programme was sanctioned in 1983 and the aircraft made its first flight in 2001. The IAF had signed two contracts with HAL, one for 20 aircraft in the Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) configuration signed on March 31, 2006, to be completed by December 2011, and another for 20 aircraft in the Final Operational Clearance (FOC) standard signed on December 23, 2010, which was to be completed by 2016. It is in the process of ordering 83 jets in the Mk 1A configuration.

The IAF constituted the first LCA squadron with just two aircraft in 2016 and, as of July 2018, has inducted only nine aircraft. Tejas has once again missed the FOC in June and the development of the Tejas-Mk 1A with specific enhancements has been delayed. With this development, HAL’s aircraft division will be headed by a serving three-star officer or an Air Marshal of the IAF, and effectively give the IAF control over the country’s indigenous LCA project.

In addition, three institutions — Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) and Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) — which are under the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) are likely to be brought under the direct control of the Chief of the Air Staff. Thus, the entire development cycle of the LCA will have the IAF’s oversight and will ensure timely execution and prevent blame games over delays, the source observed. Details of the specific contours of the move are awaited.

‘Long overdue’
“The IAF should have taken over the LCA programme two decades back, but [it is] good it’s happening at least now,” said Air Marshal M. Matheswaran (Retd), who oversaw the IAF’s fighter procurement in the past. He felt that to make a real difference, the IAF should get the entire cycle under its control, from design, standardisation, production and supply chain. Otherwise, just having one officer at the helm will not change things much, he added.

“Production for 20 FOC aircraft will be taken up after FOC clearance by the ADA, for which the current target is December 2018,” Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha last week.

However, a Defence Ministry official said this is likely to be delayed by another six months as several parameters like gun firing, air-to-air refuelling and new data-linked software defined radios, among others, are yet to be validated. The IAF wants new data links as a standard feature on the FOC variant as communications are an essential feature for an aircraft to operate in a network-centric environment.

HAL is setting up a second assembly line to ramp up production from eight to 16 aircraft a year, in addition to outsourcing major modules to private partners.

Design reboot
The LCA is powered by an American GE-404 engine, which the IAF has stated is underpowered. This is to be corrected in the LCA-Mk2 which would be a larger aircraft powered by the GE-414 engine producing 98kN thrust compared to 84kN thrust of the current engine.

“The design change has been launched sometime back. We don’t want just some superficial changes, but a real increase in performance. The target is to meet or exceed the Mirage aircraft in performance,” an IAF official said.

To accommodate the larger and more powerful engine, which also needs more fuel, requires a larger wingspan for the aircraft. This calls for a major design and engineering effort.

“There are concerns and challenges but it is doable,” the officer noted.

The first prototype of the Mk2 is expected to make its debut flight in 2022-23, and complete the IOC and FOC approvals in the next five years. The current target is to have the first squadron ready by 2028.

The IAF intends to have several squadrons of the LCA-Mk2 as it has to replace three Mirage squadrons, three Mig-29 squadrons and six Jaguar squadrons. A squadron typically has about 18 aircraft, 16 fighters and two trainers. However, this can vary, depending on the type of aircraft and the necessity.

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Railways Mull Rs 6,250 Cr Replacement To Flawed Bio-Toilets–After Spending Rs 1,620 Cr

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IndiaSpend Team, June 18, 2018
Mumbai: Having spent nearly Rs 1,370 crore on 136,985 railway bio-toilets–criticised for being “no better than septic tanks”–and after earmarking Rs 250 crore to install bio-toilets on remaining trains by March 2019, the railway ministry is now considering “upgraded” vacuum bio-toilets at a cost of Rs 6,250 crore.

“We have started experimenting with vacuum bio-toilets like those in an aeroplane,” Railway Minister Piyush Goyal told PTI. “Some 500 vacuum bio-toilets have been ordered and once the experiment is successful, I am willing to spend money to replace all the 2.5 lakh toilets in the trains with vacuum bio-toilets.”

Vacuum toilets, which cost around Rs 2.5 lakh per unit, will be odour-free, will cut down water use by 1/20th and have fewer chances of getting blocked, he added.

This takes the cost to Rs 6,250 crore.

In addition, vacuum toilets will need to be emptied and cleaned in rail yards.

As of May 31, 136,965 bio-toilets have been fitted in 37,411 coaches, at a cost of around Rs 1 lakh per toilet, according to railway ministry officials quoted by the PTI. This brings the expenditure to about Rs 1,370 crore.

There is a plan to install bio-toilets in around 18,750 more coaches by March 2019, when all the coaches of the Indian Railways will be fitted with such toilets, costing the national transporter around Rs 250 crore, the PTI release added.

The technology–and the criticism

Indian Railways are often described as the world’s biggest toilet: They eject around 3,980 tonnes of faecal matter–the equivalent of 497 truck-loads (at 8 tonnes per truck)–onto rail tracks every day, according to a report released by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in 2013.

Bio-toilets are small-scale sewage-treatment systems beneath the toilet seat: Bacteria in a compost chamber digest human excreta, leaving behind water and methane. Only the water, disinfected later, is let out on the tracks. That’s how they were supposed to work.

But, signs of failure came early.

In 2007, an experts committee headed by Vinod Tare, a professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, had concluded that bio-toilets developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) were not workable. “Yet, the Indian Railways went ahead with the decision to proliferate this model,” Tare told IndiaSpend in this January 7, 2018, interview.

Sanitation experts and various studies–including commissioned by the railways–have pointed out that most of the new “bio-toilets” on Indian trains are ineffective or ill maintained and the water discharged no better than raw sewage, as IndiaSpend reported on November 23, 2017.

Lokendra Singh, former director of the Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDE), had, after an expedition to Antarctica, brought home psychrophilic bacteria that can survive in extremely low temperatures. The bacteria were mixed with cow dung and normal soil, which have methogens (microorganisms that produce methane) capable of breaking down human excreta. This was then supplied to the manufacturers of rail bio-digesters.

Singh’s claims of a scientific breakthrough were questioned: The bacterium did not have independent third-party certification, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) did not have a patent for the design and manufacture of bio-toilets, and once the tank is filled, human excreta is allowed to drop down onto the tracks.

A December 2017 report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on these bio-toilets echoed the findings of our November 2017 investigation into their widespread malfunctioning: The CAG found 199,689 defects in 25,000 toilets. Some major issues were:

Highest number of problems/ defects (41,111) found at the Bengaluru coaching depot, followed by Gorakhpur (24,495) and Wadi Bunder (22,521);
Complaints per bio-toilet were highest at the Bengaluru coaching deport (98), followed by Wadi Bunder (32), Rameshwaram (28) and Gwalior (17);
Of the 102,792 instances of choking, 10,098 (10%) cases reported in March 2017;
Of the 102,792 cases of choking in 25,080 bio-toilets, the highest (34%) were reported from Bengaluru. This implied that one bio-toilet got choked 83 times a year;
Choking incidents have risen from 2015-16: One bio-toilet got choked four times a year during 2016-17.

Responding to the CAG findings, the railway ministry said its criticism was “not correct” and that “some problems of choking were occurring on account of misuse of toilets by passengers”. An official note from December 20, 2017, said: “These issues are being dealt with promptly.”

The denial

The railways ministry responded to our November 2017 investigation, pointing out what it calls “factual inaccuracies” and a lack of “technological understanding”. We had published the rejoinder verbatim, with our response:

The ministry said the IIT Madras study was conducted “on stationary toilets on selected 15 field installed units and 6 units installed at IIT Madras Campus with bio-digesters based on DRDO technology”, and not on railway coaches. “There is absolutely no difference,” professor Ligy Philip of IIT Madras had told us. “The same technology and the same bacteria is being used for both the land-based and the train bio-digesters.”
“It is not correct to say that bio-toilets in coaches are ineffective or ill-maintained,” the ministry said, adding that periodic tests are conducted to ensure that the discharged water meets specific norms. However, agenda papers of a Railway Board meeting in October 2017 showed that bio-toilets have not passed the performance tests.
“DRDE has more than a dozen national and foreign patents not only on the basic technology but also on the bio-digester fitted in railway coaches,” the ministry said. However, the patent is for engineering and septic tank design. There is no mention on the use of the Antarctica bacteria to aid the bio-digestion process.
The ministry said that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed with the DRDO in March 2010. However, the patent for engineering and septic tank design was awarded in 2015–five years after the MoU for supply of bio-toilets was signed.

The policy U-turn

As a possible solution, IndiaSpend had offered the ‘zero-discharge toilets’ developed by IIT Kanpur.

“IIT Kanpur developed ‘zero-discharge toilets’ which have a separator to segregate the solid matter of human excreta from the liquid portion,” Tare, the professor, told us. “The liquid portion, after treatment, can be used for flushing, while the solid waste can be evacuated at junctions with the aid of assembly suction pumps. Human excreta–mixed with cow dung–could subsequently be used for vermi-composting.”

The railway ministry rejected this solution saying the system “involves installation of ground handling facility to evacuate retention tanks at the terminals”.

“This involves huge infrastructure cost, man-power, terminals are landlocked, inter- track distance is not uniform everywhere,” the ministry said. “Whereas, in IR-DRDO system, waste is treated on-board itself and thus no ground infrastructure is required. Thus, IR-DRDO bio-toilets being proliferated over IR, is a better solution.”

Vacuum toilets, such as those used in aeroplanes, as we said, will need evacuation facilities and treatment plants–which will come at an additional cost to the Rs 6,250 crore likely to be spent on replacing the bio-toilets.

Drdo

Army whistleblower alleges harassment

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Prateek Goyal – Saturday, May 26, 2018, 8:12 PM Sakal Times

“According to sources in Army, Dubey was shunted for reporting the security breach to Army Headquarters and CBI”

Pune: In a classic case of harassment of a whistleblower, who had exposed a security breach, the office of an Army officer was sealed on the orders of a high ranking Army official.
Earlier, on March 13, 2018 Sakal Times had carried a report that said the CBI was going to probe a Major General’s role in a security breach at VRDE.

As per the latest development, Lt Colonel NK Dubey found his office at the Ahmednagar-based DRDO’s Vehicle Research & Development Establishment (VRDE) sealed at around 5.30 pm on Tuesday evening. A letter was issued to him half an hour later, stating that Major General Ajay Gupta, Director of VRDE, has transferred him to the National Centre for Automotive Testing.

Despite the ongoing CBI inquiry against Gupta in the security breach matter, he was recently given an extension after completing two years at VRDE through an order issued by Secretary DD R&D and Chairman of DRDO Dr S Christopher on May 18, 2018. Surprisingly, within a two working days of this order, Gupta shunted Dubey out of his office.

According to sources in Army, Dubey was shunted for reporting the security breach to Army Headquarters and CBI. Dubey reported about a 30 minute meeting conducted by Gupta on February 15, 2018 with two foreign nationals and a non-resident Indian, along with officials of a private company, without taking clearance from the Directorate of Vigilance and Security, New Delhi, as is mandatory for DRDO officials.

Earlier, Dubey reported the security lapses at VRDE, including inadequate guard posts, unavailability of QRT vehicle, unavailability of routes to do perimeter patrolling, inadequate boundary lights, etc. to DRDO, after which a letter dated May 22, 2017 was written by Gupta to Army HQ to transfer Dubey. The Army headquarters, however, refused to do so. (Army HQ letter available with Sakal Times)

A source said, “Lt Colonel Dubey have been targeted for exposing corruption and corrupt practices. Previously also, in 2017, Major General Gupta kept him out of office for around two months despite Army HQ refraining him from doing so.” Source added that Gupta had received the letter on June 12 from Army HQ, but he sat on it till August as it was demi-official (person to person). Source said that due to this, Dubey could join back only in August after being informed by Army HQ about the letter. Sealing the office of Dubey and posting him out is an act of revenge against him for being a whistleblower in a number of previous cases against Gupta.

It is significant to note that in 2015, dozens of complaints were reported against Gupta for his deliberate acts and omissions of misconducts under CCS (Conduct) Rules 1964 and under the Army Act, criminal misconduct amounting to corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and criminal offences under IPC to then defence minister Manohar Parrikar. Gupta, then the Director of Vigilance and Security, DRDO HQ, New Delhi, was removed from his post and transferred to the office of Director General, Aeronmautical Systems, Bengaluru.

When questioned, Gupta said, “He (Dubey) is being relieved because there is an investigation against him for leakage of information which he was holding and gave to an unauthorised person outside the lab. Somebody has asked us to conduct an inquiry. He may influence the investigation and hence, he is being posted out.”

Responding to questions that Gupta sat on the Army HQ’s order overruling his decision to transfer Dubey, Gupta said, “DRDO is not under Army, DRDO is an independent organisation, which runs on the basis of its own rules and regulations. If the Army has posted him here, then there is a particular procedure which has to be followed as per DRDO rules. Even DRDO has written to the Army to post him back, I don’t know why the Army is not posting him back.”

When questioned about the VRDE security breach and complaint to CBI, Gupta replied, “I don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t want to talk further.”

 

 

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Why Indian Railways Need To Buy 3,350 Truckloads Of Cow Dung For Rs 42 Cr

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Srinand Jha, January 6, 2018- IndiaSpend

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Indian Railways need to buy 3,350 truckloads of cow dung at Rs 42 crore in 2018 to “recharge”–add bacteria to activate degradation–leaky, malfunctioning ‘bio-toilets’ that it has fitted on 44.8% of trains and hopes to expand to all trains by 2018, according to IndiaSpend projections of data released by the national auditor to Parliament.

Bio-toilets are small-scale sewage-treatment systems beneath the toilet seat: Bacteria in a compost chamber digest human excreta, leaving behind water and methane. That’s how they were supposed to work.

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report on these bio-toilets echoes the findings of our November 2017 investigation into their widespread malfunctioning: The CAG found 199,689 defects in 25,000 toilets.

Responding to the CAG findings, the railway ministry said its criticism was “not correct” and that “some problems of choking were occurring on account of misuse of toilets by passengers”. An official note from December 20, 2017, said: “These issues are being dealt with promptly.”

“By November 2011, the performance issues of each design of bio-toilets were clearly showing up,” the note said. “Therefore, the ministry did not wait until the end of the trial period to make the decision (to order the procurement of bio-toilets from private manufacturers).”

Our November 2017 story quoted studies from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and IIT Kanpur that said the bio-toilets were no better than “septic tanks” and the water they let out no better than “raw sewage”.

Each bio-toilet requires 60 litres–or three large bucketfuls–of inoculum, a mix of cow dung and water, according to the December 19, 2017, CAG report. This inoculum begins the process of breaking down 3,980 tons of human excreta that is released untreated by trains on rail tracks nationwide every day.

The bio-toilets originally used a bacterium found in Antarctica by a defence scientist, who cultured it in 2005 and 10 years later, got a patent on its use. Over seven years to 2017, 97,761 such toilets were fitted in new coaches or retrofitted in existing Indian trains.

The railways went ahead with the toilet installation even though the flaw in the basic model designed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) had been pointed out by an expert panel in 2007. In an interview (to be published tomorrow), Vinod Tare, an IIT professor of environmental engineering, who headed this panel, told us that these bio-toilets had been found ineffective at two venues: Kumbh Mela, the massive gathering of Hindu pilgrims held every 12 years at a river bank, and the army base-camp at Siachen glacier.

The panel’s two-year study was completed in November 2017 by IIT Madras, as IndiaSpend reported on November 23, 2017.

The railways sent a rejoinder to our story–you can read it here–and soon after announced they were exploring airplane-style vacuum toilets.

The railways bought 3,600 litres of inoculum for Rs 68,400 in May 2016, said the CAG report. Based on this cost, we estimate that to recharge the 97,761 bio-toilets currently in use, the railways will need 23.46 million litres–or 3,350 truckloads–of cow dung.

With the railways failing to produce enough bacteria, the cow dung will be sourced from private sector at Rs 19 per litre. The railways have a workshop–with an installed capacity to generate 30,000 litres of bacteria each month–in Nagpur, but no action has been taken on a 2011 proposal to set up two more facilities, at Kapurthala and Perambur.

No clarity on funds or manpower for bio-toilet project

There is no clarity on two other critical issues relating to bio-toilets on trains: The infrastructure costs involved in installation, including procurement and installation of evacuation machines and hydraulic lifts, and anticipated expenses on training and deployment of manpower.

Further, if all 54,506 rail coaches are to be fitted with vacuum toilets atop the bio-toilets being installed–as is being planned–there will be an additional cost of Rs 10,900 crore. The current market price of a vacuum toilet unit is approximately Rs 200,000.

The additional expense might have been worth it if the bio-toilet scheme, 24 years in the making, had been efficient. But the CAG has amplified concerns about its performance and has endorsed the findings of the IndiaSpend investigation.

The flaws in bio-toilets, according to the CAG

In an evaluation of 25,000 toilets for the period under review (2016-17), the CAG detected 199,689 defects and deficiencies. Here are some major issues, according to the report:

Highest number of problems/ defects (41,111) found at the Bengaluru coaching depot, followed by Gorakhpur (24,495) and Wadi Bunder (22,521);
Complaints per bio-toilet were highest at the Bengaluru coaching deport (98), followed by Wadi Bunder (32), Rameshwaram (28) and Gwalior (17);
Of the 102,792 instances of choking, 10,098 (10%) cases reported in March 2017;
Of the 102,792 cases of choking in 25,080 bio-toilets, the highest (34%) were reported from Bengaluru. This implied that one bio-toilet got choked 83 times a year;
Choking incidents have risen from 2015-16: One bio-toilet got choked four times a year during 2016-17.
Quantity and quality of material used criticised by CAG

In an email dated May 21, 2016, to then defence minister Manohar Parrikar, Y Ashok Babu, a scientist at the DRDO, had alleged that a “nexus of bureaucrats and industrialists” was pushing for what was “nothing but gobar gas plants involving no technology”.

The CAG report too slammed the railways for the “quality and quantity” of material being procured.

As the report observed, there were complaints pending against seven of the nine firms against with which the Railway Board placed orders. These are: Ms JSL Life Style Limited, Ms Omax Auto Limited, Ms Mohan Rail Components Limited, Ms Rail Fab, Ms Amit Engineers, Ms Hindustan Fiber Glass Works and Ms Rail Tech.

In July 2017, the railways ministry barred three companies (Ms Rail Tech, Ms Rail Fab and Ms Hindustan Fiber) from being considered for railway contracts for an unspecified period. The ministry also proposed that the contract of another company, Ms Mohan Rail, be cancelled.

Negligence in testing of effluents and bacteria culture

The CAG report found that 12 coaching depots of nine railway zones had not finalised the annual maintenance and operating contracts (AMOCs) for bio-toilets.

“Evaluation of performance is a continuous process resulting in addition or deletion from the approved list,” the railways ministry said in a press note in response to the CAG report. It added that “all major coaching depots now had the AMOC contract, while this was progressively being extended to other depots”.

As the CAG found, Indian Railways have not adhered to the guidelines on testing the effluents released by bio-toilets. The tests had not been conducted at all at the Dhanbad coaching depot and records of the samples sent for testing and the results of these tests were not maintained at five coaching depots.

At the Lower Parel workshop in Mumbai, 18 drums of bacteria procured at a cost of Rs 68,400 in May 2016 had been lying unused even after their shelf life had expired.

After 2011, the railways placed bulk orders for the supply, installation and commissioning of approximately 80,000 bio-toilets. The CAG criticised the railways for failing to come up with a “standardized design” for these units. It also pointed to the “large scale proliferation” of 10,000 tanks in November 2011 “before test results of trials on seven different variants had been analyzed”.

Earlier news reports had suggested that the land-based variants of these toilets were unsuccessful.

This is the first of a two-part series. You can read our November 2017 report on railway bio-toilets here.

Next: ‘Railways Went Ahead With A Failed Bio-Toilet Model’

(Jha is a New Delhi-based freelance journalist.)

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‘Railways Went Ahead With A Failed Bio-Toilet Model’ IndiaSpend

✔@IndiaSpend

Tech solutions to train-toilet problem exist, but ‘the intention to find a lasting solution is not there’. Bureaucrats only interested in fulfilling targets, ensuring tenures are trouble-free: IIT engineer & professor Vinod Tare tells us. http://bit.ly/2CIZKAY

Amlan عملان अम्लान Dutta@orphean_warbler

Some yrs back Jairam Ramesh took initiative & DRDO installed some bio toilets in the villages near Wheeler Island. No one used them.
Biotoilets don’t work in Indian context

Mrinal Pande@MrinalPande1

द.ध्रुव से आयातित खास बैक्टीरिया से लैस करवाए गये हमारी रेलों के बायो- टायलेट करोड़ों खर्च करके भी नारकीय क्यों बने हुए हैं? जानकारी ।

Assa Doron@AssaDoron

So much for biotoilets http://www.indiaspend.com/cover-story/why-indian-railways-need-to-buy-3350-truckloads-of-cow-dung-for-rs-42-cr-78722 …

rsivaram@rsivaram

Wow, that’s some sh*t!

 12 minutes ago

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On-board treatment of human excreta in trains is difficult; evacuation facilities & treatment plants–for compost or biogas–can be set up in the rail yards: IIT’s Vinod Tare, head of 2007 team that studied bio-toilet project in Indian trains.

THE LEGAL INDIA@thelegalindia

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J’Railways  Went Ahead With A Failed Bio-Toilet Model’ – IndiaSpend http://ift.tt/2CN31jx

Dinesh Agrawal, Ex-IRS@dka1966
Replying to @IndiaSpend @MisaBharti

Who took decision to install bio-toilets in Railway, it appears that decision was taken decades back but installed during UPA regime but NDA is blamed

Harshit Gupta@hg6

Failed bio-toilet model?

IndiaSpend

✔@IndiaSpend

Bio-toilet model used in Indian trains failed to work at 2013 Kumbh Mela and Siachen but railways still pushing for use in all trains. Our interview with engineer & prof Vinod Tare, head of 2007 IIT study on train bio-toilets. http://bit.ly/2CIZKAY

Teesta Setalvad@TeestaSetalvad

Huge waste of your and mine..The Indian taxpayers money

Rakesh Kumar@rakeshkonfucius

Cc @PiyushGoyal @PiyushGoyalOffc

SK Iyer@iyer_sk

A 2007 study, jointly conducted by the Lucknow-based Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) and IIT Kanpur, also concluded that excreta wasn’t being treated in the bio-digesters. The railways has not made this report public. http://www.indiaspend.com/cover-story/railways-went-ahead-with-a-failed-bio-toilet-model-17151 …

Quicksilver@shigrahrajat
Replying to @IndiaSpend

they planted the septic tank in the coaches.

#कमभक्त@chat2malay

Dr @PiyushGoyal ji ये हो क्या रहा है

Drdo

Almost 2 lakh complaints of choking, foul smelling bio-toilets in trains: CAG

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PTI|Dec 19, 2017,The Economic Times
NEW DELHI: Almost two lakh complaints regarding choking, foul smelling and non-functional bio- toilets in trains were received from the public in 2016-2017, a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) said today.

The CAG, in its report on ‘Induction of bio-toilets in passenger coaches in Indian Railways’, has said that out of the 613 trains being handled in 32 coaching depots it audited, 160 trains did not have bio-toilets.

“In the remaining 453 trains having 25,080 bio-toilets, 1,99,689 instances of deficiencies or complaints were noticed,” the report stated.

With 1,02,792 complaints, choking seemed to be the most common problem for passengers regarding bio-toilets, the report said, followed by complains of foul smell (16,375), non-functional toilets (11,462), non-availability of dustbins (21,181), non-availability of mugs (22,899) and other complaints like ball valve failure and wire ropes (24,980).

The report has said that 1,02,792 cases of choking in 25,080 bio toilets imply “that one bio-toilet got choked four times in a year during 2016-2017.” During 2015-2016, for 24,675 bio toilets, 61,088 cases of choking were seen.

“This shows that instances of choking of bio-toilets increased in 2016-2017 and needs to be addressed,” it said.

The report said that 33.89 per cent of the choking cases were noticed in Bengaluru coaching depot in South Western Railway alone, which handles only 1.6 per cent of the total bio-toilets, implying that one bio-toilet got choked 83 times in a year.

The report which is based on audit for the period 2014- 2015-2016-2017 and was submitted in Parliament today, also provided Railways’ view on the stinking and choking bio- toilets.

Comments
S.K.
Bio-toilets are a very dumb idea. FEKU should have learned the best practice of rlys in the West.

Drdo

CBI raids premises of Army officer in Hyderabad over land scam row

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By Express News Service | Published: 16th May 2017 05:32 AM |
Last Updated: 16th May 2017 05:32 AM 

HYDERABAD: Days after registering a case against an Army officer and a private builder in connection with a Rs 500 crore land scam, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials from New Delhi on Monday raided the offices and residences of an army officer in Hyderabad and seized incriminatory material.

CBI registered cases against Lieutenant Colonel M G Thimmaya, former estate manager of DRDO, Bengaluru and N H Rustumji, builder and other unknown persons in connection with the transfer of a
12-acre land worth Rs 500 crore at Benniganahalli in KR Puram to a real estate developer.
The raids were conducted after court direction to probe a complaint by private land owners and various civil appeals.

During investigation, CBI officials found that Lieutenant Colonel MG Thimmaya, H Rustum and other officials entered into a criminal conspiracy with the accused in 2004-06, pursuant to which the public servants cheated the government through transfer of 12 acres 1 gunta of land in favour of a private person against the decision of the defence ministry.

CBI officials stated that the searches were conducted at seven different places including the residential and official premises of accused persons at Hyderabad and Bengaluru which led to recovery of some incriminating documents.

Drdo

Army officer, DRDO officials booked for ‘misappropriation’ of land worth Rs 500 crore

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TNN | May 16, 2017, 05.11 AM IST

NEW DELHI: The CBI has registered a case against an Army officer, a private person and unknown DRDO officials for allegedly misappropriating land worth Rs 500 crore in Bengaluru, meant for the defence ministry.
CBI teams conducted raids at 7 places in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kodagu, including the residence of Lt Col M G Thimmaya.
The agency booked Lt Col Thimmaya, who was estate manager in estate management unit at DRDO township in Bengaluru, and city resident N H Rustumji besides some unknown officials for cheating, criminal conspiracy and under the Prevention of Corruption Act after a complaint from the defence ministry.
The complaint says the Karnataka government had in a notification in 1987 proposed to acquire 114 acres and 16.5 guntas of land (40 guntas= 1 acre), situated at Benniganahalli village in K R Puram, Hobli of Bangalore, for the use of DRDO.
In 1989, the state government issued final notification saying only 97 of the 114 acres will go to DRDO.
However, between 1994-1996, the state denotified about 44 acres of land out of 97 acres without informing DRDO. The denotification was challenged by the Centre in the Karnataka HC, which ruled in favour of DRDO. The case was contested in the SC by private landowners.
As per the SC order, 2 acres and 1 ¼ guntas was to be transferred by DRDO to five persons. Subsequently, 9 acres and 39 ¾ guntas was transferred to N H Rustumji on the basis of power of attorney executed by landowners in his favour. In this deed, Rustumji was represented by Lt Col Thimmaya on behalf of DRDO.
CBI says Thimmaya and Rustumji cheated DRDO/ministry of defence through transfer of total 12 acres 1 gunta of land, says CBI.

Drdo

CBI carries out searches in Rs 500-crore land scam in Delhi

The CBI today carried out searches at seven locations, including the office and residential premises of an army officer, in an alleged land fraud worth Rs 500 crore.
By: PTI | New Delhi | Updated: May 15, 2017 9:17 PM

The case relates to alleged fraud by Lt Col M G Thimmaya, the then Estate Manager, DRDO, and a property developer N H Rustumji in filing a joint memo before the Supreme Court in a land dispute matter. (PTI)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The CBI today carried out searches at seven locations, including the office and residential premises of an army officer, in an alleged land fraud worth Rs 500 crore. The case relates to alleged fraud by Lt Col M G Thimmaya, the then Estate Manager, DRDO, and a property developer N H Rustumji in filing a joint memo before the Supreme Court in a land dispute matter.
Thimmaya allegedly gave the memo in the Supreme Court in the land dispute matter which was different from that cleared by the Defence Ministry.
“The allegation is related to criminal conspiracy between the accused during the year 2004-06, pursuant to which the officer abused his official position and cheated the Government through the transfer of 12 acres and one gunta of land in favour of a private person against the decision taken by the Ministry of Defence,” CBI Spokesperson said here today.
The agency today carried out searches at the residential permises and office of Thimmaya, now with Defence Ministry in Hyderabad, and Rustumji in Bengaluru.
The vigilance department of the Defence Ministry had pegged the alleged scam at Rs 500 crore.

 

Drdo

DRDO working on health monitor for soldiers

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TNN | Sep 17, 2016,
drdo_logo_new-copyTrichy: The Defence Research and Development Organisation is working on a wearable health monitoring system for soldiers, said P S Pandian, director-technology, DRDO, Bengaluru, explaining the varied scope of bio medical research for students.
Speaking at the inauguration of the instrumentation and control engineering department at the National Institute of Technology here on Friday, Pandian said that as long as we perform normal activities without much strain, we may not be able to identify or detect any serious health problem.
Gone are the days when we think about ailments affecting people in their 40s or 50s; even 20-year-olds with no such family medical history get diabetes and high blood pressure. A device that will keep track of a person’s health condition and send alerts much before an ailment becomes serious will help avoid crises. Such gadgets gain significance as they can save the lives of soldiers, he said.
Medical devices technologies have the potential to transform the world of healthcare as the internet did to the world of commerce. In future, people will be able to turn on tele-health products in their homes with a healthcare provider, acquire medical data and information and manage their wellness programme, said Pandian.
However, regular calibration, maintenance, testing and certification of the medical devices were needed on a regular basis to obtain the correct prognosis and treatment. He urged students to come forward and work on interdisciplinary areas to develop prototypes.
Pandian said the bio medical industry had grown in a big way and instrumentation and control engineering had become an integral part of our life. Citing the example of automated flight operations which mostly work on instrumentation, Pandian said the progress of control and instrumentation engineering was rapid and had vast scope in the future.
N Sivakumaran, head, ICE department, said students of the department need to work more on prototype developments in healthcare technology. The growth of electronics, electrical, mechanical, materials, computers, information technology and communications had led to a large number of medical devices being employed for health care purposes.
Advancements in computing and communications allowed for practices such as “telemedicine,” a system utilising the internet by which patients could be diagnosed and often treated by physicians from far away.

Drdo

Interceptor missile fails; DRDO to conduct another test soon

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Written by: Dr Anantha Krishnan M Published: Monday, April 6, 2015, 22:15 [IST] OneIndia
Bengaluru, April 06: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) faced a setback today after an Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor missile fell into the sea seconds after its launch. The missile was test-fired from DRDO’s launch facility in Wheeler Island, off the Odisha Coast.

intercepter missile
interceptor missile

DRDO officials, who spoke to OneIndia said that they would be back with another launch of the missile by the end of April after studying what went wrong. “These are part and parcel of every missile trails. We had six successive missions of the interceptor missile. We suspect that one of the sub-systems in the missile might have failed,” a top scientist not wanting to be named, said. He said that Monday’s test was to assess the performance of the composite motor rocket and the missile’s ejection from the canister. “These two parameters have been successfully tested. There was no target today. But one sub-system misbehaved and we are now analyzing some more data,” he added. DRDO says the missile’s basic systems are all intact and worked as per the textbook. “Random problems can occur while dealing with complex systems. We will be back by the end of this month for another launch,” he added. He said that the missile caught fire after falling apart. This was DRDO’s 7th interceptor missile test.