Manufacturing of Pinaka rockets not fully stabilised even after 10 yrs: CAG

Pinaka is a multi-barrel rocket launching system developed by Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), DRDO

Indigenously manufactured Pinaka rockets remained unused until July last year as its supply to the Army was halted due to some errors, a report by the CAG has said.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in its report tabled in Parliament today, said the production of Pinaka rockets has not been fully stabilised even after the completion of 10 years of production.

Pinaka is a multi-barrel rocket launching system developed by Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), for the Indian Army with a range of 38 km.

Production of Pinaka rockets by Ordnance Factories (OFs) commenced in 2007-08.

The report said that excessive short-ranging of Pinaka rockets were observed during proof firing in March 2011, October 2011, April 2014, March 2015 and December 2015.
 

Failure Analysis Board (FAB), constituted by ADRE, recommended in its January 2016 report that the root cause of failure of the rocket was probably due to structural failure of the warhead which could be due to quality errors in manufacturing process.

Further, problems such as bursting of rockets, burning chunks of propellant were observed during practice field firing of one lot in March 2016 and static and dynamic proof trials of two lots in June 2016, the report said.

Since the problems noticed during the above trials were serious in nature, the ARDE stopped production of Pinaka rockets with effect from July 2016 and constituted another FAB, the CAG said.

"However, even after constitution of the two FABs the exact problem in the manufacture of Pinaka rockets could not be pinpointed and no substantial improvement in quality of Pinaka rockets was observed since the issue of first FAB report in November 2016," the report said.

It added that in January 2017, the Secretary (Defence Production) in the Ministry of Defence also expressed his concern about the serious quality problems encountered by Pinaka rockets and indicated "lack of commitment" towards quality on the part of the OFB, which was "detrimental" to the prestigious programme of Pinaka rockets.

"Even after completion of ten years and issue of rockets to the Army till March 2017 since 2007-08, production of the Pinaka rockets has not yet been fully stabilised," report said.

"Further, due to holding of issue of rockets to Army since July 2016, 10 lots of finished Pinaka rockets valuing Rs 217 crore and unfinished Pinaka rockets and its components valuing Rs 71.36 crore, and work-in-progress and stores valuing Rs 189.75 crore were lying at OD Chanda as of July 2017," it said.