CAG In The Rafale Wheel

The auditor’s report may have cleared the Modi government on the aircraft’s price, but it questions the seven-year process that picked rafale as the lowest bidder

- Sandeep Unnithan

A long-awaited audit report tabled in Parliament rang the curtains down on the last day of the 16th Lok Sabha. The report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audited the Modi government’s 2016 purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft at an estimated Rs 60,000 crore. The report exonerates the government on the charge that it had bought overpriced jets from France, a key allegation by the opposition ahead of the May 2019 general election. The deal, the CAG noted, was 2.86 per cent cheaper than the one negotiated by the UPA for seven years, between 2007 and 2014.

While this assessment suggests that recent claims by government ministers of a 9 per cent saving in the 2016 negotiation were exaggerated, Congress president Rahul Gandhi dismissed the report as a ‘cover-up’. “It ignores the cost of the missing bank guarantee and glosses over the suspect costs for ‘India-Specific Enhancements’,” he said.

The CAG report comes as another boost for the Modi government after a positive verdict from the Supreme Court on December 14 last year. Responding to four PILs, the apex court had said it had no reason to doubt the government’s procurement of the Rafale jets. The government has refused to reveal how much it paid for the fully-loaded Rafales, citing secrecy clauses in the deal.

The Supreme Court had received price details in sealed envelopes from the government. The CAG continued to maintain the veil of secrecy, referring to the price only as values and the differences in costs in percentages.