CAG blasts away ordnance units

JABALPUR: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has revealed that the Army rejected ammunition for tanks worth Rs 607 crore, manufactured and supplied by the Ordnance Factory Kharmaria (OFK) here, following detection of defects.
The stunning disclosure is carried in the latest CAG audit report. It also indicts almost every ordnance factory (OF) for incurring wasteful expenditure running over a few hundred crores of rupees.
The expenditure could have been curtailed had the officials of these factories not gone for unwanted purchases and if equipment and manpower were properly utilised, the report said.
According to the report, the OFK had supplied 1.35 lakh shells (ammunitions for tanks) to the Army, which cost Rs 607.43 crore. However, the shells were found to be defective and the factory was asked to replace them. But nothing was done and they are lying unused in the five Army Commands.
The Machine Tool Prototype Factory, Ambernath has been charged with serious quality problems in the machines it manufactures. The factory had supplied 11 machines at a cost of Rs 6.47 crore to its sister factories, which were found to be unfit for use. The factory also paid Rs 8.91 crore in overtime, although its original manpower remained underutilised.
The factory is also accused of unnecessarily procuring three CNC machines and manufacturing one such machine, incurring an expenditure of Rs 2.60 crore, which remained underutilised.
Even then, the CAG report points out, the company imported yet another CNC machine, that too a defective one costing Rs 1.09 crore.
The delay caused by the management of Ordnance Factory, Chanda to rectify the defects in 6495 shells manufactured by it led to wasteful expenditure of Rs 18.07 crore.