In an unprecedented development, chiefs of the Army and the Air Force will appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Wednesday in relation with alleged irregularities in canteen stores department (CSD) supplies.
Naval Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma would, however, be represented by Vice Admiral D K Dewan as he would be travelling to Indonesia on a “pre-scheduled” four-day visit beginning tomorrow, sources said.
Based on a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), PAC had called the chiefs of the three defence services for a hearing on January 12. The report has pointed out irregularities in the supply chain management of CSD.
The defence ministry, which received the communication, advised the service chiefs to appear before PAC, apparently to underline the committee’s immense significance at a time when the government was seeking to project it as a body as important as the joint parliamentary committee with regard to the 2G spectrum issue, the sources said.
Accordingly, PAC had been informed that Army Chief General V K Singh and Air Chief Marshal P V Naik would be appearing before it, they said.
This would be the first time the chiefs of the armed forces would appear before PAC. Usually, the defence secretary attends such parliamentary committee meetings, along with vice chiefs of the services.
However, sources in the army said the service chiefs were unlikely to appear before the committee and, instead, vice chiefs and quarter master general equivalents would represent their forces.
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The army chief had also wondered if there was any “extra requirement” for the chiefs to appear before PAC.
Highlighting the irregularities, CAG said: “The existing procedure for the provisioning of dry rations failed to realistically assess the requirement. The failure was mainly due to systemic deficiencies, owing to which different quantities were worked out at different echelons, applying different parameters.”
The report said the risk of existing “cartels” affecting the quantity and quality of rations was too serious to be ignored.