In a series of tweets, the Congress has rejected the government’s claim that the Comptroller and Auditor General report on Rafale deal has proved it right.
The party has said that the CAG report hides “behind the Aligned Price” making the comparison between the costs of 2007 and 2016 Rafale deals meaningless.
Hours after the CAG report was tabled in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress said, “This is the first time in history that a CAG report to Parliament has redacted numbers. This in itself raises a big question mark on the report. The comparison of the prices is based on the Aligned Price, the calculation of which is opaque.”
The CAG report mentioned that the deal struck by the Modi government in 2016 was 2.86 per cent cheaper. Responding to this finding, the Congress said, “The bank guarantee which was present in the previous deal and would have constituted an additional 7% cost is not present in the new deal. So the so-called savings of 2.86% can be attributed to the cost of the missing bank guarantee.”
“The reason the numbers have not been declared is that dollar for dollar, the deal costs more than before. The report has hidden behind the Aligned Price. The lack of numbers makes comparison of costs meaningless,” reads one of the tweets posted by the Congress party.
Here below the key point of CAG report :
The 36 Rafale fighter aircraft deal concluded by the BJP-led government is 2.86% cheaper than the deal negotiated by the Congress-led UPA government.
CAG report doesn’t disclose actual prices (because of national security concerns) but compares the two deals in percentage terms.
NDA paid substantially less on India-specific enhancements, that are 17.08% cheaper in the new deal, but paid more on performance-based logistics and engineering support package.
For the vendor Dassault Aviation, the 2016 deal is sweeter than its 2007 proposal because in the new deal the French company didn’t pay bank guarantee, performance guarantee and warranty.
Improvement of one month in the delivery schedule in the 2016 contract.
No difference in the basic aircraft cost between the 2007 bid and the negotiated value in 2015 after taking into account the yearly escalation.
Savings of 1.05% in the weapon package in the NDA deal.
The 2007 offer includes training of 26 pilots and 76 technicians whereas the 2015 offer comes with training of 27 pilots, 146 technicians and two engineers. As a result the training package increases by 2.86%.
Indian Negotiating Team (headed by Air Marshal S B P Sinha) has been blamed for “unrealistic price benchmarking”, which is 57% lower than the initial offer of the French team.
The July 2014 offer from EADS (for Eurofighter Typhoon) with 20% discount was not accepted by the Defence Ministry as it was an unsolicited offer.
