Rien wrote: The quote from the MD of HAL makes clear that HAL is the one refusing to indigenize and claiming there is no local source of supply for these materials. The reality is that all aerospace materials have a local supplier in Bharat. I listed all the materials, metallic and not metallic and linked to the actual supplier. HAL is the one responsible, not Jaitley or MoD.
HAL is an component maker & assembler. It is not 'Material producer' like SAIL or TATA sponge. So, its wrong to blame HAL for lack of Material research within India. The blame directly goes to babus(Ministry) who know all this very well and they are happy with HAL importing raw material from outside. You are acting naive on purpose & ignoring facts, just to score your point.
Rien wrote: Neither Babu's nor Ministers are to blame. There is a clear Directive from the MoD and the local Babu to increase indigenous content of the product to 50%. HAL is defying written orders from the "evil Minister" and the "corrupt Babu".
HAL is refusing to be accountable for their failure. There is a huge failure of accountability in PSUs. The senior management of HAL should be fired. Competent management should be brought in who understand the concept of meeting targets and failure means job loss.
The CAG informed parliament in 2010
"As against the envisaged indigenisation level of 50% (by 2008), 90% of the value of material used in each ALH is still imported from foreign suppliers," says the latest CAG report, tabled in Parliament on Thursday.
"Even though ALH has been in production for 10 years, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd has not been able to identify alternative indigenous suppliers," said CAG, which conducted a "performance audit" on the ALH project being run by the defence PSU.
CAG is simply a reporting agency. They report what they see, that's all. They don't 'infer' anything. They are not expert on aerospace technology or domain decisions. Everyone in Ministry knew very well since beginning that HAL is importing Raw-Materials from foreign nations and they themselves approved the custom clearance(
do you really think HAL smuggling this Raw-material into India without clearance from Babus and Babus+Minister didn't approve this? ) Babus are fully aware of it and they are happy to maintain their own Cash-flow in the import-deals, at the cost of not funding SAIL or local units to develop that material within India.
So, the blame goes to Babus & Ministers who know everything but act naive, as if they knew nothing since 10 years.
All these article bashing HAL & DRDO are planted in media by ministers & babus themselves, to make public confused so noone see the real foxes. In India, babus have deep links inside Media. Check Sanjay Baru's interview with madhu trehan for some great examples. Ofcourse, the HAL/DRDO officials can't "speak" because there is mighty OSA to kill them. (There is no reason other than this - PSU work great in Russia but fails in India because of "Corruption" at ministry level. Make HAL free like ISRO and then see. Do u want to bet? They won't because it will kill their bribes. )
Rien wrote: My very first post identified indigenous suppliers, that HAL could not find in 10 years. I did a Google Search. This should tell you everything you need to know about HAL. This failure of HAL has directly impacted the Dhruv. Toray industries sanctioned Bharat for 18 months. HAL"s failure led to delays and cost increases for every Indian taxpayer. We can't afford PSU bungling any more.
Lets put TATA/Mahindra's units under Ministry of Defence and put Babus on their boards. All so-called productivity will goto gutter. TATA/Mahindra units won't be able to fund a simple 100 Crore project without approval of Babus(maai-baap).
Conclusion: Problem is not HAL. Problem is people who are sitting above them(babus, politicians).
Also, the HAL/DRDO guys don't plant stories inside media, they don't have such deep links. That's the reason their image is worst in India. Ever wonder why Babus in Defence ministry are never named in media for corruption? Becoz they are the ones who hold media guys by neck.
Same is true for Armed forces. Top IAF/IA guys won't dare speak up against their senior babus because one media story(with grace from a Babu) can kill their career.
Note: I have no animosity towards TATA or private players. But i don't need tobe anti-PSU in order to justify my love for private players. A wrong is wrong. It is wrong to blame PSU's for no fault of theirs, just to score a point for private players. We can be pro-PSU and pro-private at the same time, where is the harm?
PSU's are not bad, they have wonderfully served the purpose. Yes, they could have done 10 times better if their management had autonomy like Nuclear/Space boards. They should be under PMO, not ministries. Companies run good when they have CEO type "One-Man" leadership structure at top, with full 'planning+execution' powers in hands of company board itself. CEO(PM) only intervenes twice/thrice a year to check/approve new goals in 1 shot.