The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has criticized the acceptance of inferior-grade steel used in the manufacture of fleet tankers of the Indian Navy by Italian firm, Fincantieri, saying it amounted to ‘undue favor to a foreign vendor in (the) procurement of fleet tankers’.
Not just the steel, the CAG also has a problem with the ‘excess provisioning of spares worth more than INR 300 million (USD 6 million) and under realization of offset benefit to Indian industry’ in the procurement worth INR 9.36 billion (USD 200 million).
The CAG’s report says the original Request For Proposal (RFP) had a mandatory stipulation requiring the use of ‘DMR 249A or equivalent grade steel’ in the construction of two fleet tankers, which it says is ‘almost double the cost of ordinary steel’.
The INS (Indian Naval Ship) Deepak (Lamp) in dry dock at Muggiano, Italy being launched last February.
[Times Now] Genoa | Today at Fincantieri’s shipyard in Muggiano (La Spezia) there was the launch of the first of two fleet tankers ordered by the Indian Navy, with delivery scheduled by the end of the year. Present at the ceremony were Arif S. Khan, ambassador for the Republic of India in Italy, Corrado Antonini, Chairman of Fincantieri, Admiral Franco Paoli, commander of the Naval Department of the Upper Tyrrhenian Sea. First announced at Euronaval in 2008, the order is the first surface vessel India has ever made to a European company and followed a selection procedure with strong international competitors, especially from Russia and Korea.
