The curse of AgustaWestland

Last Friday came the shocking news that the CBI had taken into custody, Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi (Retd),who had held the prestigious position of the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) of the Indian Air Force (IAF) between 2005-07.

The two others arrested along with the former CAS were his  cousin Sanjeev Tyagi  and  a  lawyer, Gautam Khaitan.  As per the  CBI, all the three individuals   have been arrested  “for accepting illegal gratification in return for  exercising influence through corrupt or illegal means”.

The case relates to the award of a Rs 3600 crore contract  for 12  luxury variant of the  AgustaWestland AW-101 helicopters for  VVIP travel.  In the process of selection, the AW-101 was pitted against the Sikorsky S-92, the only other contender in the race for the contract and was declared  the winner in 2008.

Orders for the helicopters were placed in 2009, but the contract ran aground when investigations by the Italian authorities discovered that the Italian aerospace major Finmeccanica, the parent company of AgustaWestland,  had  bribed entities in India  to secure  the contract.

After three helicopters had been delivered to the IAF, the contract was placed on hold and subsequently terminated at the end of 2013. Although the former CAS has already been grilled by the CBI a number of times in this  four-year old case, it is understood that the arrests have been  made by the CBI  at this point in time for “custodial interrogation” to facilitate further investigation.  

It is understood that CBI hopes to uncover the involvement of others, possibly from the bureaucratic and political fiefdom, that control the process of procurement of high-value military hardware or even those remotely associated with the scam.

The arrest of the former CAS will undoubtedly have a devastating effect on the morale of the IAF and a paralytic effect on the decision-making process at Air Headquarters. It will be difficult for the IAF to come to terms with the curse of AgustaWestland.

While the law will and must take its course in this case and as  media reports are replete with the gory details of this rather unsavoury episode, there is very little left for  anyone to add to the story or to enhance clarity.

However, there are a number of related issues that need to be deliberated upon.   Firstly, the helicopters in question were meant for the transportation of VVIPs and have no military role. Strictly speaking therefore, transportation of VVIPs ought to be handled by the Ministry of Home Affairs or by the Ministry of Civil Aviation   and not by the Ministry of Defence. After all, Air India provides aircraft for international travel for the Prime Minister of India.

The responsibility of operating and maintaining the fleet of VVIP helicopters, as also of  fixed-wing aircraft,  has been conveniently assigned to the IAF primarily as this organisation possesses the appropriate skills and organisational attributes.  As these platforms ought not to be classified as “Defence Equipment”, the alleged irregularity in the process of their procurement, should not be described as a “Defence Scam”.

The other issue relevant to the context pertains to the Make in India programme initiated by PM Narendra Modi. If VVIPs in the past have been undertaking road travel in Indian-made Ambassador cars, there is no reason why VVIPs today cannot undertake air travel in helicopters produced  by the Indian aerospace industry.

After all, hundreds of officers and men of the Indian armed forces travel in indigenously produced helicopters on a daily basis.  If Indian VVIPs opt to fly onboard indigenously produced  helicopters, it will provide the much needed impetus to the Indian aerospace industry as also to  the Make in India campaign. This change would also obviate the need for procurement of prohibitively expensive platforms from  Europe or the United States  for VVIP travel at the cost of the hapless taxpayer.

It would be pertinent to mention here that the fleet of helicopters for travel by the President of the United States  are the Sikorsky S-92 helicopters. Incidentally, the airframe of this helicopter is made  by a joint venture firm established in Hyderabad by Tata Advanced Systems Limited in partnership with Sikorsky.

So far, the company has produced over 150 such airframes, but has not sold even one in India. In the search for an appropriate platform for VVIP travel, it is quite likely that the decision may be in favour of the S-92 which had earlier lost the race against the AW-101.  Could this finally be the silver lining in a sordid episode!

— Air Marshal (Retd) B.K. Pandey,
The writer is former AOC-In-C, Headquarters Training Command, Bengaluru