Reality of Power and Media in India

Reality of Power and the Media in India

Let me first revisit one of the cherished delusion of common people, that is, the Chiefs of Indian Armed Forces are so powerful that they must always be kept under most stringent checks lest they transgress their sphere of influence. Remember the outcry which has gone up when they requested the government to rectify anomalies in award of Sixth Pay Commission to the soldiers. This was touted as height of disloyalty and disrespect for the constitutional authority. Well reality is quiet different. Real power in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) lies with the bureaucrats. Let me elaborate with the example of recent scandal involving erstwhile head of Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), Mr Sudipta Ghosh. The fellow has been arrested by the CBI for what it calls “one of the biggest corruption scandals in recent times”.

As per the official website of the MoD, `The Ordnance Factories Organization is the largest and oldest departmentally run production organization in the country and is engaged primarily in the manufacture of Defence hardware. The organization functions under the Department of Defence Production and Supplies and is a dedicated facility for manufacture of Weapons, Ammunitions, Vehicles (Armoured and Transport), Clothing, General Stores and Equipment for Defence Services. Apart from supplying to Armed Forces, wherever adequate capacities are available, the Ordnance Factories also fulfill the requirements of Paramilitary & Police Forces/Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Civil Trade and foreign customers. There are 39 Ordnance Factories geographically distributed all over India at 24 different locations. Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) the corporate headquarters of these factories professes to follow the values of Integrity, Transparency, Fairness & Trust. India Today describes the OFB as `the world’s largest government production department’.

Mr Sudipta Ghosh was the head honcho of OFB for two years has been accused of amassing huge fortune through shady deals involving foreign firms. For the sake of appearances the OFB is supposedly an autonomous organization but in reality head of OFB reports to the Additional Secretary Defence Production in the MoD who in turn is subordinate to Secretary Defence Production, who reports to Defence Secretary MoD. These worthies control the OFB through a system of checks and balances wherein the MoD representative is always present on the various committees formed to progress major proposal. So the common sense syas that Mr Sudipta Ghosh could not have acted alone.

But when the scandal blew up, the bureaucracy, in a classic move turned the adversity into opportunity through a two step approach. First it immediately assumed the role of honest broker by declaring that the matter would be fully investigated and the guilty would be punished. Second, it made public it’s decision to exercise greater control over OFB by, hold your breath, having a Joint Secretary attend all important meetings of OFB and by making additional secretary Department of Defence Production available to OFB for closer interaction. Since these worthies were already on committees formed to progress OFB proposals how will they get closer? And, what will this closeness achieve? More corruption! Masterly case of `movement being passed off as action’.
Real culprit in the whole messy game are the bureaucrats in the MoD. Since the OFB is a rich source of all kinds of perks and privileges, the bureaucrats have a vested interest in keeping the functioning of the Ordnance Factories under warps because secrecy allows them to run a most inefficient conglomerate at the cost of lives of soldiers and taxpayers money. Sub-standard items produced by the OFBs are forced down the throat of Services by first getting the item quality cleared from Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA), an in-house minion of Secretary Defence.

So-called national press has been conspicuous by its absence from this important issue. It is time for concerned citizen to take matters in hand and demand that OFB be immediately turned into a fully autonomous public holding company open to norms of transparent corporate governance. The bureaucracy in MoD must be divested of any power over the supplier (OFB), Quality Controller (DGQA) and Services. Why not have a regime similar to the one constituted for tele-services.