Navy surfs on froth of failed contracts SUJAN DUTTA New Delhi, March 15: A friend whose father was in the navy has this take on the service. In the 1980s, when there was a demand for a second aircraft carrier, an air force officer had wondered aloud at a cocktail what the navy was going to do with such a large ship.
"Is it", he asked, "for ballroom dancing?" Today, the navy has space enough to waltz, disco, rap and reggae - with a jig of bhangra - in the high seas. It has the acreage of the Viraat's flight deck because nearly all the aircraft carrier's combat planes, the Sea Harrier, are grounded. And the navy's second-largest ship, the amphibious INS Jalashva, sails on the condition that it cannot be used in a war. It was only last month that the Indian Navy had projected itself as the largest sea power in the region. It hosted an Indian Ocean regional summit of naval chiefs and proposed joint anti-terrorism operations. The navy assumed it was a natural leader in the region to make such a proposal without having to emphasise its prowess. Within weeks of that summit, it is surfing in the choppy waters of failed and faulty contracts. If blame for negotiating a faulty contract for the Jalashva - a warship that cannot be used in the event of a war - were to be assigned, Pranab Mukherjee, now foreign minister, would be in an uncomfortable situation. He was defence minister from May 22, 2004, to October 25, 2006. The Jalashva offer was made in September 2004 and "the ship was purchased in a hasty manner" (according to the Comptroller and Auditor General) on July 31, 2006. Before the contract was signed, in June 2005, Mukherjee had visited the US where he signed a 10-year "framework agreement for the India-US defence relationship", a pact made public only after it was formalised. Provoked, the Left alleged India was making its interests subservient to America's in the military arena. The negotiation for the Jalashva was carried out during Admiral Arun Prakash 's tenure as navy chief, from July 31, 2004, till October 30, 2006. The now retired admiral says the navy acts in its best interests. Naval officers were aghast that their former chief should be mentioned in the same breath as the flawed Jalashva contract. "What we do with the ship after we acquire it is up to us," they claim. Translated, this means that even if India has agreed not to use the ship in a war, it is free to do whatever it wants during hostilities. The navy is already grappling with the consequences of badly drawn up contracts. Four months before Mukherjee took over, his predecessor George Fernandes oversaw the clinching of the deal for the Russian aircraft carrier, the Admiral Gorshkov. That contract was so faulty that it did not contain a clause on price escalation. The upshot: Russia has demanded $1.2 billion over and above the $1.5 billion negotiated. In the waters that have flown between the Gorshkov and the Jalashva, the navy finds itself at sea in a way it did not envisage. The rap, the reggae, the waltz and the bhangra on the choppy waves of its own churning are distinctly different from surfing the foam. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080316/jsp/frontpage/story_9026165.jsp The fall out on Goa may need to be thought through and suitable evasive action contemplated.
