Indian Ministry of Defence, The Defence Minister Shri AK Antony has categorically ruled out allowing middlemen or commission agents in defence deals.
Addressing a press conference shortly after inaugurating the fifth edition of DefExpo India-2008 here today, Shri Antony said the government's stand on the issue is very clear – “No question of middlemen in defence deals.”
He, however, discounted apprehensions about timely procurement of weapon systems and platforms for the forces saying that the government would be able to spend budget allocations on capital expenditure head and would be asking for more resources in the next budget.
The Defence Minister, however, ruled out any compromise on transparency. “Of course, we cancelled two-three contracts. Do you want us to compromise on transparency? Even at a later stage when we find something is wrong somewhere, we are not concerned about the status of the company; we will cancel it. So we have gone for fresh RFP,” he said.
Shri Antony replied to a wide range of questions. He said that the Defence Procurement Procedure 2008 will be ready by April and it is being fine-tuned with a great deal of diligence after taking into account the suggestions received from various stakeholders including the services and the industry.
