Army chief appears before lawmakers
India’s chief of army staff General V K Singh on Wednesday stood before a committee of lawmakers to answer questions on the alleged anomalies in the supplies to canteen stores, managed by defence personnel.
Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), headed by Leader of the Opposition Murli Manohar Joshi, had summoned the chiefs of the Army, Air Force and Navy to appear for hearing on the alleged irregularities, first of its kind in India.
They PAC move followed a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the Indian watchdog on spending of government funds.
The summons were made though the defence ministry.
The General appeared at around 11am before Joshi and made a presentation how the canteens run for defence personnel.
Singh was assisted by his officials, who have knowledge in running the affairs.
The Chief of Air P V Naik, would also appear before the Committee later in the day.
However, the Navy would be represented by its Vice-Chief D K Deewan as Navy chief Nirmal Verma is in Indonesia on an official visit.
The CAG had said in a 2009 report that the Canteen Stores Department’s procurement and distribution of dry rations was faulty.
The existing procedure for provisioning of dry rations failed to assess the requirement realistically. The failure was mainly due to systemic deficiencies due to which different quantities were worked out at different echelons applying different parameters,” it said.
