JOIN USUPA ensured Agusta got deal, says Parrikar
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said in the Lok Sabha on Friday that the erstwhile UPA government “did everything” to ensure that AgustaWestland got the VVIP chopper deal.
The minister described former IAF chief S P Tyagi and Gautam Khaitan, accused in the case, as “small people who simply washed their hands in a flowing Ganga (stream of corruption)”, asserting that the government will track down the main beneficiaries of the scam who received the kickbacks in the Rs 3,600 crore deal for 12 VVIP choppers.
“I can guarantee that Tyagi and Khaitan are very small people. They just washed their hands in the flowing Ganga. The Enforcement Directorate is going to ascertain as to where this stream of Ganga was actually reaching. We have to find out big names. We will take action,” he said.
The AgustaWestland scam could have been stopped in 2012 itself had the erstwhile UPA government taken immediate action when the reports about the Italian firm’s corruption began surfacing, he said.
The then Defence Minister, A K Antony, wrote a letter to the Central Bureau of Investigation asking it to conduct a probe into the matter only after the officials of Finmeccanica, the parent company of the AgustaWestland, were arrested in Italy in 2013. “Nothing would have been done, if they had not been arrested,” Parrikar charged.
He was speaking in the Lok Sabha on a calling attention motion on the chopper deal moved by BJP member Anurag Thakur.
Giving details of the “omissions and commissions” made during the UPA regime at various stages of the processing of the chopper deal, Parrikar said a “single-window situation” was created for AgustaWestland.
The ceiling height of the chopper was reduced from 6,000 to 4,500 metre during the NDA regime to expand the vendor base as only four vendors came to participate in the tender process in 1999. Of them, three submitted their quotes and just two reached the final stage.
When the UPA came to power at the Centre later, a mandatory staff qualitative requirement (SQR) of 1.8 metre cabin height was introduced. “This virtually threw other vendors out of the race and facilitated entry of AgustaWestland. The vendor base was further reduced with the introduction of 1.8 metre cabin height (for the chopper),” Parrikar said.
The field evaluation trial of the chopper had to be conducted in India to test its efficiency here. “But, it was done in the UK on vendor’s demand. The then defence minister had objected to it. But, proposal for field evaluation trial of the chopper in the UK was later approved,” he said.
Moreover, the request for proposal (tender) for the VVIP choppers was issued to AgustaWestland, Italy, but the AgustaWestland International Limited, UK received it. “This has serious legal implications. They are going to use it in legal battle,” the defence minister said.
He further charged the UPA government of having failed to recover the entire money given to AgustaWestland in advance after finalisation of the deal.