CAG indicts IAF for aerostat radar damage

New Delhi: The IAF’s capabilities to monitor low-level flying enemy aircraft have taken a hit as one of its two aerostat radars deployed along the Pakistan border was damaged in an accident in 2009 due to “failure” of its three officers. The radar is likely to be operational only by next year when 80 percent of its life spam would be already completed. A CAG report tabled in Parliament today said that a Court of Inquiry to investigate the causes of the accident involving the Rs 338 crore aerostat “held three officers responsible for their failure in adequate supervision” of the maintenance activities. [caption id=“attachment_79377” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Rohini radar. Image courtesy PIB”] [/caption] “All the three officers were awarded severe displeasure for six months as they failed to carry out their responsibilities which led to the accident of the aerostat costing Rs 338 crore,” the report said. India had procured the two aerostat radars at a cost of Rs 676 crore in 2007 to meet its low level surveillance requirement against enemy aircraft and drones. Slamming the Air Force for the mishap, the CAG said the repair of the damaged system is estimated to cost Rs 302 crore. “The recovery programme of the damaged aerostat would take 18 months from the commencement of repair work. However, the IAF could issue the RFP to vendor for damage assessment in April 2010 and the contract was not concluded by June 2011,” it said. The government auditor said against the authorised four meteorological officers and nine meteorological assistants, “the unit had no meteorological officers and only two meteorological assistants were there.” Inadequate manpower at the unit resulted in failure to continually monitor the development of clouds and changes in wind direction and the aerostat balloon met with the accident in May 2009, it said. The CAG said the IAF has submitted that due to acute shortage of officers, meteorological officers had to be posted at flying stations to meet the requirements there and added that the strength of meteorological assistants at the aerostat units has been increased from three to five, which will be adequate for the requirements. “Despite the increase in strength of meteorological assistants from three to five, their strength is far below the sanctioned strength. This coupled with the non-posting of meteorological officers is a severe constraint in functioning,” the auditor said. The CAG said that by the time IAF makes the aerostat operational by 2012, 80 percent of its prescribed life would have been completed. For the second unit of the aerostat, the CAG said the  fabric of the system had started showing signs of decay in the fourth year of its inflation life resulting in excessive leak of helium from it. “The average flight duration was 20 days in a month as against prescribed 28 days each month from November 2008 to February 2011,” the report said. The CAG said that due to this development, the IAF “not only found it difficult to maintain altitude and continuous flight operation of one month impacting aerial surveillance adversely but also incurred an extra expenditure of Rs 1 crore on procurement of helium gas due to leakages”. The CAG said the scrutiny of contract agreement revealed that in spite of the request from the Israeli firm Rafael to enter into a tripartite agreement with US firm T/COM, which manufactures the fabric of the balloon, Defence Ministry failed to enter any such pact. “The absence of such an agreement adversely affected the repair of the aerostat balloon,” it said. PTI