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Secret audit reveals DRDO irregularities

Secret audit reveals DRDO irregularities

TNN Aug 14, 2012, 03.14AM IST

NEW DELHI: A confidential internal audit ordered by the defence ministry has found several financial and other irregularities in the functioning of the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), which has a network of 50 labs and an annual budget of over Rs 10,500 crore.

 

This comes a day after TOI reported that none of the main recommendations — first by the Rama Rao Committee in 2008 and then a watered-down version by a committee headed by the defence secretary in 2010 — has been implemented to revamp DRDO to ensure that advanced weapon systems are developed for the armed forces without huge time and cost overruns.

The fresh internal audit, conducted by the finance wing of the defence ministry, has raised serious questions about the lack of transparency in DRDO’s functioning, including the alleged sanctioning of Rs 2.80 crore by DRDO chief V K Saraswat to a mathematical society headed by him.

 

DRDO spokesman Ravi Gupta, on being contacted, said the issues raised in the report were “essentially in the nature of preliminary observations” and the audit itself was “vitiated by a faulty process”. “None of the points raised in the audit report stands scrutiny… We are giving a point-wise rebuttal to the baseless conclusions,” he said.

 

The audit report also pointed out that DRDO was splitting sanctions for its projects to avoid seeking approvals from “competent financial authorities”.

Readers comments

Polachan Vm (Egypt)

8 days ago

….if all the black money and the corrupt money is confiscated, we can buy USA three times. ..luckily our leaders and judges are thieves..wishing all poor Indians a very happy Independance day…  9249850342 ..former thief justice..

myalmightygod (India)

9 days ago

God bless india.

Raghubir Singh (Pune)

9 days ago

Internal audit is one of the healthy procedures to have financial checks and balances in place and every government department has such auditing as a matter of routine even in ops units in forward areas. There is nothing secret about it. As a first step there are preliminary observations-majority of which get settled after the explanations are given at working level showing relevant file/documents/authority etc. We can delve on two point’s including MBT Arjun being overweight which has also found mention in the preliminary observation. Best MBT’s of the world like US’s Abram, UK’s Challenger, Germany’s Leopard & Isarel’s Merkava having crew of four all weigh in the region of 62-65 tons as compared to 58 tons that of Arjun with four crew which is great feat in weight management! MBT Arjun has withstood enough flak for decades & proven its merit in the desert trials pitted against blue eyed T-90. But eventually DRDO would have to develop newer third generation tank as China has done. Splitting the sanctions is generally to win race against time for projects which otherwise would get stuck up in red tapes -for which there should be red carpets to roll on smoothly? Splitting by remaining within limit is permissible and let us not grudge this financial authority bestowed on authorities like Directors.

spot on (Paris) 9 days ago

DRDO Chief V K Saraswat was first one to vouch for the Tetra Trucks performance and suitability when former Army gen VK Singh blew the scam in the open. Once scam thickened and stink ed too much, this guy faded in the air. CBI and media doing good work for the khangress family. My friend worked for many year for DRDO and he told me that most of the project engineers outsource work to companies formed by their own family members. Please probe middle management too to show the rot.

dasg (NY) replies to spot on 8 days ago

No wonder the morons continue to buy 70% of the weapons, unmatched by any nation with even 50 million let alone 1200 million. VK Singh remarks must have sent shiver down this crook Saraswat’s spine. But nothing will happen, whole edifice is rotten, and as a result honest people like VK Singh are cast as vilians and crooks like Saraswat are applauded.

dasg (NY) 9 days ago

Ha ha ha Mathematical Society! Good one. Corruption thy name is Indian. But then he is thinking if Sonia, Kamadi, Kanimozi, Raja, Laloo, Pawar and almost everyone why not me. ISRO Nair too made enough. The whole edifice has become rotten to the core.

Mohan (London) replies to dasg 8 days ago

I will like to share my personal experience about DRDO. I have an international reputed Masters in science from one of top European university.I studied from top 10 Indian engineering college. I am working abroad in a research lab, applied for a job @DRDO; they didn’t even select me. While most of the scientists who work in DRDO are below average, lack any capability to produce anything substantial, they wont choose NRI candidates as they believe in corruption. Dumb engineers and scientists want to maintain their status quo without delivering any result!!

bg (hyd) replies to Mohan 6 days ago

“yet another these are sour grapes story”

dasg replies to Mohan 7 days ago

Well Indian or for that matter local recruitment is based solely on your abilities, in India foremost your contacts. That is 1200million people, have not single University among top 100 let alone top ten in the world. They are now being beaten black and blue by China. You have dull people and lazy people, dull people vote along caste/parochial line people like Laloo, Maya, Mulayam, Kuruanidhi, Raja who support crooks like Sonia, Rahul. So its is dullness of mind that they adhere to divisive, highly detrimental and dangerous casteism. Lazy people are middle class who cant up their fat backside to participate in the electoral process even to the extent of casting vote.

Rajat’s Comment

Rajat Submitted on 2011/08/20 at 7:56 am

Thank you for your all efforts you have put and we all hope that you will keep going like this. Its very well known that higher officials of DRDO are not as they appears but its not good to criticize every scientist, still there are lot of scientist who might be struggling against the system , there must be good dedicated higher officials who are working hard enough for results. Everyone must also read the story of LCA development, how many hours daily they have worked, their sacrifices and what they are getting in return, peanuts. Though this doesn’t justify the corruption in any way and corruption must be eradicated. Like LCA there are many other achievements of DRDO which cant be overlooked and were almost very difficult to achieve. But everything starts from HR policy of DRDO, HR Management of DRDO which need to changed on priority. Everything starts from the promotion policy since the intention with which performance bound performance system was introduced is not being served and senior use it as a weapon to harass junior employee and scientists. It has more side effects than effects, many scientists are here who are working hard but when it comes to promotion either not are given call or they are not able to get through interview for promotion, but it has nothing to do with their talent because they are victim of wrong management. Headquarter tries to settle things properly but at laboratory level everything is changed as per their will so that juniors wouldn’t dare against them or if they , wont get succeed in future after all who can challenge interview process(no recording). If its corrected more corruption matter will come into light , system will be more transparent and competent. Who knows better than you , being a victim you can sense more precisely and clearly everything. Every year there must be recording of interview and there shouldn’t be any known members or representative of laboratory, they motives can be served with instruction to interview panel. Or frustration will keep heaping until it burst. In many laboratory Canteen items are sold to non eligible private workers, isn’t cheating with Govt. Relation of employees with each other is also reflection of favoritism. Junior employees can be seen insulting senior as they are favorites of higher scientist or Director, Admin officer and their behavior with other employees or staff there are countless examples which need to be stated, a lot of changes are required but with your start it seems possible but i personally feel sometimes you are driven with personal emotions and that makes your efforts less effective.
Among all the available cases you certainly will find few selected persons in all the laboratory and their selected one indulge in it but whole system cant be blamed.
As far as North Korea is concerned its also well known that it is supported by China and pakistan. Pakistan exchanged nuclear technology with North Korea in exchange with missile technology while China is looking for bigger cause , its international politics. But in any way India is not inferior to North Korea , its ridiculous statement, by saying so you are insulting countless nights scientist are staff have spent working extra for country, you are underestimating efforts put for achieving higher goals country have set. At what time western countries started their efforts for defense technology and when did we start speaks of untiring will of our scientists whether ISRO, or DRDO. These technologies are not freely available in market, you may have money but no will sell you. Everything has to be start with scratches so its my request to you consider it also while commenting. Your intentions are sacred but sometime coming off differently and such deviations can be overlooked. We should take care of not giving wrong impression of our scientists because respect and dignity is something which is asked in returns otherwise nobody mention ever HOW MANY IIT’ian OR OTHER ELITE SCHOLARS ARE SERVING DIRECTLY OUR COUNTRY, EVERYONE KNOW , EVERYONE TRIES TO GO ABROAD, SETTLE THEIR OR WORKING WITH MNC FOR HIGHER SALARIES , AND BURDEN OF EXPECTATION IS ALWAYS ON DRDO, ISRO, OTHER SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATION. SALARIES OF OTHER PERSONS WORKING ON SAME TECHNOLOGY OUR SCIENTISTS ARE WORKING IS MANY FOLD HIGHER.

Dear Rajat

Thank you for your sincere and fruitful comment. In fact this topic should be debated that “A establishment which got birth in 1958 and witnessed the successive war of 1962, 1965, 1971 and 1999 Kargil War. Why became so insensitive to the national defence.”

Just after Kargil War when media questioned the Chairman ISRO for the failure in electronic surveillance, the quick reply from Dr Kasturiragan was  ISRO is not responsible for our border surveillance, DRDO is actively engaged with defence activities, they can better reply on this issue. When same question was asked to Scientific Adviser to RM he said that for surveillance of border we need a military satellite.

Rajat you asked yourself after 64 years of independence and lakhs of crores  of investment on ISRO & DRDO the 120 crores people has to hear such statement, shame on us.

Even if we had taken up a firm decision after 1999 Kargil War probably India would have moved ahead in border surveillance by now.

Recently on discovery channel the details of the planning of attack at Abbottabad , Pakistan was revealed by American Mariners.  A team of US navy seals was selected in 2001 just after OSAMA BIN LADEN survived from missile attack in Sudan on 20th August 1998.

The team was authorized to use any resources but as top   secret mission. They have to develop

(i)                  A Stealth Helicopter
(ii)                Sound proofing of engine
(iii)               Only thermal sensing while move
(iv)              To assess lip movement behind the wall
(v)                Count the member through thermal sensing behind the fore wall & many more gadgets for self protection.

Dear Rajat the world saw that in 10 years time the dedicated man power were able to identified the target and accomplish the task and the complete   operation was shown live in White House.

Such scientific venture needs

(i)                  Accountability (Self)
(ii)                Dedication
(iii)               Honor the commitments
(iv)              Resource mobilizations

These four points are completely missing in DRDO. The talent is available in plenty in DRDO but in top brasses the vision totally detours, they are engaged in minting money in all means. The extension business, procurement routing via their near & dears, discourage those scientist who want to contribute on project indigenous means. I have ton of tons informations on DRDO today’s scenario, the intelligence agencies, enforcement agencies, bureaucrats are helpless to control these intellectual mafias, because they easily fool the politicians. They draw a rosy picture in front of defence committees and every time they use different arrows to justify the failures.

Now days DRDO’s for their exorbitant expenditure for any infrastructure justifies comment is due to “denial regimes”

In DRDO directors is like  and protected by unforeseen forces from the top. The square root is like protection. A director bluntly says that occupying this chair is something different then possessing mere degree.

The fresh IIT products are reporting to ITI/Diploma with fake IETE (unrecognized distance education centers) / IETE graduates scientists. The difference in these scientists that IIT’ ians never compete them in assessment (because in DRDO assessment system the degree and scientific work is negligible, if you took any list of DRDO/DRTC assessment you will find the success rate of those scientists who are engaged in sundry work like administration, security, MTO, Store procurement and other non scientific work) are higher than those who are working in projects/ programs. Therefore they crushed the knowledge and ruin the scope of scientific development.

Yes there are many honest and qualified scientist but they have compromise with present scenario of DRDO.

A debate on this subject is requested from the reader

Thanking you

Regards
       
Prabhu Dayal Dandriyal
21-Sunderwala, Raipur, Dehradun-248008
Phone – 2787750, Mobile- 9411114879,
E-mail id prabhudoon@gmail.com,  prabhu@dandriyal.com Website – www.corruptionindrdo.com