Letters: Unfair to re-categorise

Apropos the report “Defence Ministry flouts norms for BEL” (September12), we wish to point out that the procurement of Track and wheel-based electronic warfare system (TWBEWS) as “Buy (Indian) from M/s BEL” was approved by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) in September 2008, recognising BEL’s expertise and experience and also in line with the government policy and applicable procedures. Further, due to changes in the composition of tracked and wheeled vehicles, the case had come up again for the DAC’s consideration in February 2010 and it retained the categorisation as “Buy (Indian) from M/s BEL”. Based on the DAC’s decision, BEL pro-actively went ahead with the development with significant investment and has already demonstrated some of the critical technologies to the user in August 2010. Detailed configuration of the entire system has been discussed with the user in several rounds to finalise the General Staff Qualitative Requirement (GSQR) and the issual of the request for proposal (RFP). BEL is awaiting the receipt of RFP and feels that any re-categorisation at this stage will be unfair.

H V Keshava Murthy
Additional General Manager (Corp Comn)
Bharat Electronics Limited

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