From failing to meet the Army’s UAVs requirements to defective and life threatening parachutes and critical quality problems in the Pinaka rocket systems, the CAG has come down heavily on India’s state-run defence research and production sector

NEW DELHI: From failing to meet the Army’s UAVs requirements to defective and life threatening parachutes and critical quality problems in the Pinaka rocket systems, the Comptroller and Auditor General has come down heavily on India’s state-run defence research and production sector.

In a report tabled this week in Parliament, the CAG states that two types of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) could not be inducted into the Army due to severe delay in their development by the DRDO. Among issues listed are problems with the airframe, engine and payload that have impacted the Army’s aerial surveillance capability. In a particular model’s case, all four trial unmanned planes were lost to crashes.

The auditor has said that Ordnance Parachute Factory Kanpur met production targets for parachutes only in five instances out of 49 analysed and faced complaints from the forces. This led to a critical shortage that adversely affected the operational preparedness of the two forces such as grounding of aircraft and efficiency of paratroopers.

The CAG also highlighted quality problems in Pinaka rockets for the Army such as excessive short ranging, bursting of rockets and burning chunks of propellants. But two Failure Analysis Boards could not pinpoint the exact problem in the manufacture of the rockets. With this, the CAG stated that the production of the rockets has not fully stabilised.

Detailing problems with the ‘Nishant’ UAVs, the CAG pointed out that they failed to meet any requirements of the Army and all four given for trials crashed within three years of receipt. “Army found it unsuitable due to its inadequacy in meeting the surveillance requirement of the Strike Corps, because of its poor mission reliability, long preparation time and defect prone quality. All the four UAVs crashed within three years of their receipt. Only one UAV ordered was replaced by the DRDO, which also crashed in November 2015 due to failure of parachute recovery system,” reads a CAG report.

In regard to parachutes, the CAG found that as the ordnance factory did not meet production targets, there were significant shortfalls in Pilot Parachute for Mirage 2000 aircraft, Pilot Parachute Chest Type, Paratrooper Tactical Assault (Main) and Brake Parachute for Sukhoi-30 aircraft.

The CAG also said that 730 parachutes valued at `10.80 crore did not achieve specified quality parameters but were passed by state run units with deviations.

“Though the users (army and air force) expressed serious concern on the nature of the defects having flight safety implication and high risk in man dropping activity, undue delays in rectification or replacement of defective items by the ordnance factory led to critical deficiencies at the user’s depot and field units,” said the report.