Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
defence establishment intrigue that has been allowed to develop since India's independen-
ce, especially in the army. This was coupled with disarray at top levels, exposing intense
personal and caste-based rivalries among generals, especially those in line to become the
with the government over his birth date, which dictated when he would have to retire. In
addition to criticizing poor army equipment, he also alleged that he had been offered a Rs
14 crore ($2.8m) bribe by another general in the army to continue to buy nearly 1,700 all-
terrain Tatra army trucks that he claimed were faulty (not to be confused with India's Tata
Motors, which also makes army trucks).
The vehicles, which are widely admired for their flexible-axle agility on rough ground,
are made (complete or as components) in the Czech Republic by Tatra Trucks, which is
controlled by an Indian-owned UK-based company called Vectra. They are assembled in
India by Bharat Earth Movers (BEML), a PSU, under a deal that was struck in 1986 when
Rajiv Gandhi's Congress government was in power. Technological know-how was to be
gradually transferred to BEML so that 85 per cent of the trucks would be made in India by
1991, but only 50-60 per cent Indian content had been achieved 21 years after that date.
The left-hand drive had not even been changed to India's right-hand drive, yet some 7,000
trucks had been delivered to the army. BEML also incredibly waived its rights to the axle
technology, which was the trucks' key asset. The business was investigated by the CBI with
allegations that the army was charged as much as 100 per cent, and maybe more, for the
trucks above their ex-factory cost and that spares were also overcharged, but little progress
was made on the case.
Manoj Joshi, a journalist and defence specialist who was a member of a government se-
curity taskforce in 2013, says the army chief of staff in 1987 told him that he had wanted
to import the trucks direct from what was then Czechoslovakia, but had been persuaded to
allow BEML to handle them and indigenize the production. 'Over the years, BEML has
merely taken kits and put them together and passed them on to the army after marking up
their prices. As the army chief forecast, the trucks would have been cheaper to import,'
wrote Joshi.
9
A Trail of Inadequacy
To see the problems in perspective, follow this trail. The inefficient, heavily protected pub-
lic sector's involvement with new weapons starts with a massive spread of defence research
organizations under a vast Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) that
has had a monopoly on design and development. Then there is an equally massive spread
of nine DPSUs, and 39 government ordnance factories run by an Ordnance Factory Board.
