Copter deal: Raman Singh faces scrutiny

The Agusta copter deal that landed the Congress in a soup is also threatening to drag Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh into a controversy as the Opposition Congress here on Friday raked up an old issue demanding a high-level probe into alleged irregularities in the procurement of the copter by the Raman Singh government in 2007.

The Congress cited adverse remarks by CAG in its report submitted in 2011 on the purchase of the Agusta A-109 power helicopter by Chhattisgarh government in 2007, saying the controversial deal had cost the state exchequer dearly.

The CAG report said, “Failure of the department to finalise the first offer for purchase of Agusta A-109 power helicopter within due date and its subsequent procurement at higher rate led to extra expenditure of Rs 65 lakh”.

According to the CAG investigation, the state government approved purchase of a new Agusta A-109 power helicopter (January 2007) and constituted a high-level committee for procuring a new copter.

However, instead of calling tender as per store purchase rules, the state Cabinet in its meeting in February 2007 approved the relaxation from calling tender on the ground that the copter was a specialised product.

Further, the Cabinet authorised the committee to carry out negotiations with the dealer on a proposal received in January 2007 from the manufacturing company’s service provider in India, M/S OSS Air Management.

The proposal was received for the supply of the helicopter at a price of $63.15 lakh, including a premium of $2 lakh.

On the negotiation with the dealer at Hong Kong by the state government in February 2007, the dealer agreed to waive the premium provided the order was placed by March 29, 2007.

However, the state government wanted a renegotiation on the price of the copter to make it at par with the cost of the copter granted to Jharkhand in 2005-06 at $55.91 lakh.

However, later the state government floated a global tender to procure the copter and procured it from the same dealer at a cost of $65.70 lakh, thus incurring an additional expenditure of Rs 65 lakh.