A Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) report tabled in both houses of Parliament today indicts the Ministry of Defence for a scam involving supply of defective sleeping bags meant for troops in Siachen.Recommending a probe into the scam by an independent agency, the PAC describes the MoD’s role in purchasing 8,588 ‘‘sub-standard’’ sleeping bags from a French firm for 11.86 million French francs as ‘‘questionable’’. It expresses shock that the MoD continued to negotiate another deal with the firm despite its going bankrupt.‘‘The questionable role of the MoD, particularly the officers responsible for execution of the contract, be entrusted to an independent agency for thorough investigation,’’ the PAC recommends. The 8,588 sleeping bags received from the French firm, Monclear, between September 1992 and June 1993 were found to be sub-standard and could not be used by the troops at Siachen. ‘‘The manner in which the contract was executed by the ministry gave an unmistakable impression that the intention was always to accommodate the foreign supplier under any circumstances, regardless of the quality of the sleeping bags,’’ the report says.The PAC says it is appalling that the MoD sought to go ahead with the purchases even after the original Swiss supplier, M/S Richner, lodged a statutory specific complaint of sleeping bags being sub-standard. The PAC has also pulled up the Directorate General of Quality Assurance for its failure to carry out the mandatory inspection of supplies.
