India's national audit watchdog agency, the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) has severely criticised the Indian Navy's upgrade of 14 Sea Harriers. The Navy embarked on the upgrade -- called the Limited Upgrade Sea Harrier (LUSH) programme -- in March 2005.The new CAG union audit report on the Indian Navy, tabled in Parliament yesterday, observes, "The contract for limited upgradation was concluded but only in March 2005. The delay was mainly on account of finalising technical requirements, issuing the Request for Proposal, conducting Technical Evaluation for the missile and associated radar. Not only did this delay defeat the very purpose of execution of the project on fast track basis but the Navy would also be able to exploit the upgraded Sea Harrier aircraft for a very limited period only, i.e about three years or less. Even subsequently, there were delays in the execution of the programme by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and the first milestone of handing over two prototypes to Navy by February 2007 could not be achieved.
