The Comptroller and Audit General (CAG) authority has cracked open an investment scam featuring unwarranted acquisition of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) worth Rs. 450 crore from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). CAG unearthed that this scam when these alleged UAVs were found lying as junk with the Hyderabad-based National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), the technical arm of the external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
In the first-ever audit from a intelligence agency in India, the CAG uncovered that this alleged UAVs provided by the Israeli vendors had become non-functional and were unaccounted. In 2007, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) had approved Rs. 300 crore importance of acquiring UAVs, but NTRO overstepped the guidelines and ordered additional buying Rs. 150 crore worth of satellite links and electronic intelligence link through the Israeli vendor, without consenting with all the CSS, when only payments of up to Rs. 20 crore are able to the NTRO top brass. CAG, in their probe, found that the satellite link purchased had not been utilized for that dedicated transmission; for it was an empty and highly unsafe mode of transmission where anyone could download the sensitive data sent from UAVs. The usage of these UAVs, CAG reports, was susceptibly called off due to the deficiency of a safe and secure, dedicated satellite link and the UAVs were cast out. The CAG has referred to as the fault in the NTRO officials for participating in the unwarranted purchase and blindly pursuing the Israeli vendor’s word the satellite link ended up successfully tested in Australia before it was signed off.
Following a tip-off coming from a whistle blower, the CAG took about the task of probing to the matter, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sanctioned an inquiry in the same, considering the tip-off was too sensitive to be ignored. CAG has questioned top officials, including some senior finance officials and major raaf magazine generals, while ex-NTRO chairman K.V.S.S. Prasad Rao, and current advisor M S Vijayaraghavan, are actually indicted inside CAG report.
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