By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, August 21, 2018: Former union minister of state for defence and senior Congress Jitendra Singh on Tuesday raised the Rafale fighter aircraft purchase deal of the Narendra Modi government and said it was copy book case of squandering national interests causing loss to national exchequer.

Mr Singh, who is the Congress in-charge of Odisha affairs, told reporters here that the country had lost a public money to the tune of Rs 41,205 crore by purchasing Rs 526-crore aircraft per Rs 1670 crore per unit.

“As per an international bid opened on December 12, 2012, the Union government was to buy 126 Rafale aircrafts at Rs 525 crore per unit. As many as 18 aircrafts were to come in ‘fly away’ condition from France and 108 units were to be made in India by public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with transfer of technology arrangements. At this price, 36 aircrafts would have costed Rs 18,940 crore. On April 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced emergency ‘of-the-shelf’ purchase of 36 Rafale aircrafts in Paris at Rs 1670.70 crore per aircraft. Will the PM Modi explain as to why an extra amount of Rs 41,205 crore is being paid from public money?” asked Mr Singh while addressing a press meet here.

Stating that the PM and defence minister refused to divulge the inflated price of 36 Rafale aircrafts claiming secrecy clause, the Congress leader said the agreement between India and France has no such clause on disclosure of commercial purchase prices.

“The UPA government had disclosed the price of Dassult Aviation made MIRAGE aircraft, as also Sukhoi aircraft and other defence purchases on the floor of the Parliament. What is the PM and defence minister then hiding?” he questioned.

The former Union minister said no mandatory prior approval of Cabinet Committee on Security was not taken at the time of announcing purchase of 36 aircrafts nor were other procedures including Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) followed.

He also questioned “snatching away” of 36,000-crore offset contract from Central PSU HAL “which would have created huge job opportunities for people in Odisha where it has got a state-of-the-art facility.”

The Mr Singh also questioned the rationale of bypassing HAL to allow Anil Ambani-led private firm Reliance Defence Limited to get the offset contract and Rs 1 lakh crore Life Cycle Cost Contract.

“In the biggest instance of crony capitalism” the offset contract was given to Reliance Defence Ltd which got the contracts just 12 after its formation and without any experience in the field of defence equipment manufacturing and maintenance. The company which has no track record of even making a bicycle, got such huge contracts. The total scam is nearly of Rs 1.40 lakh crore” he said.

The Congress, Mr Singh said, would continue to demand a probe by Joint Parliamentary Committee to unearth the truth.

The Congress leader presented a bunch of documents in the press meet in support of his allegation.