A TV news channel showed that the bulletproof jackets used by Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar were of sub-standard quality. They were tested on dummies a few years ago and were found to be not up to the mark. Despite that the procurement was done.

It is actually the system that is to be blamed – the procedure of procurement is too long and complicated. There are terms like revised estimate (RE), budgeted estimate (BE) and Forecast (FC), which determine how much of what item anyone can procure, the bottom line being ‘lowest quotation’. The procurement of the current financial year must have been projected three years earlier – else, one has to strictly adhere to what has been budgeted. Therefore, unless there are well conversant persons in the procurement stream, the actual work will suffer. The budgets are monitored by men of finance and if the requirement of money is not there, the purchases have to be curtailed – either one has to do with lesser quantities or go for a lower quotation or postpone the purchase to a later date.

The purchase of arms in India has always been considered fishy. Right from Bofors that rocked the country in mid and late 80s, there have been number of allegations on pay-offs to middlemen.

In 2005, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was looking into an alleged pay-off in the purchase of anti-material rifles (bunker busters) from a South African company in 2003, during the tenure of George Fernandes who was the defence minister in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime. Tehelka, a news portal carried out a sting operation into defence purchases in 2000 and detected number of irregularities.

Then there was the famous ‘coffin scam’. The suspected officials entered into a contract during 1999-2000, to import 500 aluminum caskets and 3000 body bags at an exorbitant rate of $ 2,500 (approximately Rs 1.20 lakh) per casket and $ 85 for each body bag. The contract amounted to $ 15, 05,000. It was alleged that similar caskets and body bags that were supplied to the United Nation mission in Somalia and to the United States army at $ 172 and $ 27 respectively.

Another major scam was the pilferage and sale of high-altitude clothing and rations meant for soldiers deployed at the Siachen glacier, which is considered to be the world’s highest and coldest battlefield. This scam was unearthed by the Jammu and Kashmir police after they found jackets, boots and even parachutes being sold openly in markets in Leh. The recovery of sophisticated equipments like high quality parachutes, trousers and jackets meant for use at high altitudes and army boots in the Nubra Valley, near the Siachen glacier, surprised the police as most of these equipments for soldiers deployed on Siachen are very expensive and purchased from European countries.