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NEW DELHI: Nandas, Khannas, Choudhries and now, the Tyagis. These are just a few big names that crop up in different arms deals. There are hundreds of other shady wheelers and dealers who brazenly strut about in power circles â political, bureaucratic and military â to oil India's creaky and long-winded arms acquisition process.
India may be the world's largest arms importer, having spent well over $50 billion to acquire arms over the last decade, but it does not have a single authorised representative or agent of a foreign armament company on the defence ministry's rolls.
But arms agents certainly exist, sometimes in the garb of "consultants" but mainly as shadowy middle-men, despite all the much-touted anti-graft provisions and "integrity pacts" the defence ministry gets armament companies to ink as a prerequisite to the arms deals.
People in the know say kickbacks in defence deals normally amount to 10%-12% of the total contract value, with the major chunk going to politicians. "Middle-men normally get 2% to 5%. Bureaucrats and officers from the user service concerned (Army, Navy and IAF), who have helped to swing the deal, get the rest," said an insider.
"Even if the weapon system on offer is the best in terms of technology, grease money always floats around. That is the Indian way. If someone is reluctant to take cash, then there are other ways...paid vacations or funding of their children's education aboard," he added.
With many senior military officers becoming "consultants" for armament firms after retiring, the "facilitation" often begins at the first stage of the long procurement process itself when the "qualitative requirements" for a desired weapon system are formulated. "The specifications sometimes are tweaked to favour the product of one particular company," said an official.
This "tweaking" has come to the fore in the erupting VVIP helicopter scandal. Italian investigators have alleged 51 million euros was paid as bribes to swing the 556.262 million euros contract for AgustaWestland to supply the 12 three-engine AW-101 choppers to India.
Taped conversations of the alleged middle-men in the deal, Guido Haschke, Carlo Gerosa and Christian Michel, who routed the money to India and the Tyagi brothers, show them boasting about how they had hoodwinked the Indian system.
Despite a series of arms scandals over the last three decades, the Indian defence establishment has not been able to plug the gaps. Its muddle-headed policy on defence agents is a case in point. The NDA government in 2001 had lifted the blanket ban on agents, which had been in force since 1987 after the Bofors howitzer and HDW submarine scandals, since it had proved counter-productive.
But this bid to inject some transparency came a cropper since the norms and guidelines laid down for agents were considered to be stringent and unrealistic, with the government even declaring it would determine the scale of commission to be paid to the agents.
At present, the MoD's defence procurement procedure provides for the mechanism of the pre-contract integrity pact for deals over Rs 100 crore as well as provisions prohibiting engagement of agents or "use of undue influence".
But as choppergate has shown, all this is clearly not working. "It's time the government came up with a new clear-cut mechanism to legitimize and regulate defence agents since they will not go away," said a senior official.
Worldâ??s largest arms importer doesnâ??t employ a single authorized agent - Times Of India
India may be the world's largest arms importer, having spent well over $50 billion to acquire arms over the last decade, but it does not have a single authorised representative or agent of a foreign armament company on the defence ministry's rolls.
But arms agents certainly exist, sometimes in the garb of "consultants" but mainly as shadowy middle-men, despite all the much-touted anti-graft provisions and "integrity pacts" the defence ministry gets armament companies to ink as a prerequisite to the arms deals.
People in the know say kickbacks in defence deals normally amount to 10%-12% of the total contract value, with the major chunk going to politicians. "Middle-men normally get 2% to 5%. Bureaucrats and officers from the user service concerned (Army, Navy and IAF), who have helped to swing the deal, get the rest," said an insider.
"Even if the weapon system on offer is the best in terms of technology, grease money always floats around. That is the Indian way. If someone is reluctant to take cash, then there are other ways...paid vacations or funding of their children's education aboard," he added.
With many senior military officers becoming "consultants" for armament firms after retiring, the "facilitation" often begins at the first stage of the long procurement process itself when the "qualitative requirements" for a desired weapon system are formulated. "The specifications sometimes are tweaked to favour the product of one particular company," said an official.
This "tweaking" has come to the fore in the erupting VVIP helicopter scandal. Italian investigators have alleged 51 million euros was paid as bribes to swing the 556.262 million euros contract for AgustaWestland to supply the 12 three-engine AW-101 choppers to India.
Taped conversations of the alleged middle-men in the deal, Guido Haschke, Carlo Gerosa and Christian Michel, who routed the money to India and the Tyagi brothers, show them boasting about how they had hoodwinked the Indian system.
Despite a series of arms scandals over the last three decades, the Indian defence establishment has not been able to plug the gaps. Its muddle-headed policy on defence agents is a case in point. The NDA government in 2001 had lifted the blanket ban on agents, which had been in force since 1987 after the Bofors howitzer and HDW submarine scandals, since it had proved counter-productive.
But this bid to inject some transparency came a cropper since the norms and guidelines laid down for agents were considered to be stringent and unrealistic, with the government even declaring it would determine the scale of commission to be paid to the agents.
At present, the MoD's defence procurement procedure provides for the mechanism of the pre-contract integrity pact for deals over Rs 100 crore as well as provisions prohibiting engagement of agents or "use of undue influence".
But as choppergate has shown, all this is clearly not working. "It's time the government came up with a new clear-cut mechanism to legitimize and regulate defence agents since they will not go away," said a senior official.
Worldâ??s largest arms importer doesnâ??t employ a single authorized agent - Times Of India
