The Congress on Thursday questioned the ‘silence’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh over the allegations of ‘favouritism’ in the ₹45,000 crore 75-I Submarine project.
“The defence preparedness of India has been diluted and the Make in India made a platform of crony capitalism. Domestic production of Defence platforms compromised by PMO’s meddling and patronising Industrialist friends.The controversy and violation of procedures in Navy’s submarine project raises fundamental questions. PM cannot be above accountability,” Deputy Leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma tweeted.
“PM’s & RM’s silence in the ₹45,000 Cr Submarines project is intriguing & raises further suspicion as to: 1. What is BJP Govt hiding? 2. Whay are PM/RM ‘mum’? 3. Why did Govt violate DPP,2016? 4. Why was ‘Empowered Committee’ of Navy overruled? 5. Is Govt batting for Adani Def?”asked Congress communication chief Randeep Surjewala.
On Wednesday, Mr. Surjewala along with spokesperson Jaieer Shergil had addressed a press conference in which he alleged that the Union government was promoting crony capitalism in the defence purchases and accused the government of ‘promoting’ the Adani group to bag a multi-crore submarine manufacturing project even though the group had no prior ship building experience.
They charged the government with violating the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) of 2016 as well as over-ruling the recommendations of the ‘Empowered Committee’ of the Indian Navy that had been set up for the project.
The Congress leaders claimed that two key parameters set by the DPP were that the shortlisted company to manufacture the six submarines in the deal should be of Credit ‘A’ rating and the Ministry of Defence should approve a ‘Special Purpose Vehicle’ (SPV) set up for the project before applying for “request for expression of interest.”
Based on such criteria, the Empowered Committee of the Navy shortlisted the public sector unit Mazagon Docks Shipbuilders Limited and Larsen and Toubro from the private sector, claimed the Congress.
But the Opposition party claimed the government is all set to violate the Committee’s recommendations by allowing the private entity which neither has any experience in submarine manufacturing nor the required credit rating.
“Is zero experience criteria replacing the long technical criteria in Defence Procurement?”asked Mr. Shergil.
