India surrounded by difficult neighbours: Parliamentary panel

NEW DELHI - India is surrounded by “difficult” neighbours and it is of “utmost importance” that the country builds “deterrent capabilities” to safeguard the nation, a parliamentary panel said Thursday.

At the same time, parliament’s standing committee on defence deprecated the fact that the ministry had been allocated only one-sixth of the additional funds it had sought for the 2010-11 fiscal but did not “appreciate” the fact that 31.78 percent of the allocation for 2009-10 was spent in the last quarter of the fiscal that ended March 31.

In its 94-page report tabled in the Lok Sabha Thursday, the committee dealt with a variety of issues like delays in the Tejas light combat aircraft project, the demand for one-rank-one-pension, the defence procurement policy and the Sukna land scam.

“The committee finds that India is surrounded by difficult neighbours and it is of utmost importance for the country to build the deterrent capabilities to safeguard the nation,” the report said.

Noting that “just” an additional Rs.5,641 crore or 3.8 percent had been provided in the defence budget for 2010-11 against a demand for Rs.30,352 crore, the committee said this “should be made available” to the defence ministry “so that the modernization plan of the services does not suffer for want of resources.

As for the manner in which the funds allocated for 2009-10 were spent, the committee expressed its “concern” over the defence ministry’s line that a similar pattern was followed by “almost all” ministries.

“The committee do not appreciate the way the trend of utilization of the substantial allocations in the last quarter was defended by the ministry.”

The committee also pointed to the “sorry state of affairs” in the LCA project, “which is still to see the light of the day” even 27 years after being sanctioned.

“The committee emphasise that the various problems being faced with the Tejas engine should be sorted out expeditiously. The Tejas should be commissioned expeditiously either by choosing the option if importing the engine or persisting with (the indigenous) Kaveri (engine).

“All the desired steps should be taken so that Tejas is operational by the stipulated time frame (of December 31, 2018) and there is no further cost escalation (beyond the sanctioned Rs.10,791 crore),” the committee maintained.

On the demand for one-rank-one-pension, it noted that even though a panel headed by the cabinet secretary, and even the Supreme Court had found this to be “not tenable”, the government “should again consider the issue” in a “holistic manner so that large numbers of our ex-servicemen can be benefited”.

On the Defence Procurement Policy (DPP), the committee frowned on its provision for issuing a request for information (RFI) to find out the kind of vendors domestically and internationally for complex systems.

This system “is not sufficient, particularly in areas where a single vendor or few vendors are available”, it said, even as it urged the defence ministry to “evolve a structured mechanism for market research”.

“Such a system would definitely solve the problem of the single vendor/few vendors in a specific technology and would help to contain the long delays in acquisitions.”

On the Sukna land scam, in which two lieutenant generals are being court martialled for an irregular land deal in West Bengal, the committee said such incidents affect the “image” of the army and the defence ministry, which should reconsider a suggestion for appointing an independent regulator for defence lands.