Under veil of secrecy, ELINT outfit gobbles funds

Chandan Nandy.

Eight years after its creation, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), which was established on the lines of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and America’s National Security Agency (NSA), is in a mess.

Far from performing the responsibilities it was entrusted with after it was found that the country’s security establishment lacked effective technical/communications intelligence capabilities, the NTRO is battling serious allegations of corruption.

And the lid has been blown off from within: a former NTRO scientist, V K Mittal, has been able to fight his way through the webs of secrecy and official pressure and intimidation to force the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to institute a special audit which the Supreme Court is now seized of.

According to one estimate, misappropriation of funds in the NTRO is to the tune of Rs 800 crore, which was alloted Rs 9,832 crore in the 2011-12 financial year. The organisation spends approximately 62 per cent of the money on purchase of equipment and maintains a secret service fund of about Rs 36 crore. Most of the procurements were through single tenders.

According to a February 29, 2012 CAG reply to Mittal’s RTI application, the audit body “noticed lack of transparency and non-compliance of rules and procedures in procurement of systems/stores/equipment and deficient procurement management, resulting in cases of excess payment/wasteful expenditure/loss to the exchequer.”

Investigations by Deccan Herald revealed that despite objections from the chief of communications intelligence, senior NTRO officers procured satellite communication terminals worth Rs 18 crore in early 2009 from a blacklisted company, Singapore Technology.

The previous year (May 2008), Mittal, as head of NTRO’s Centre for Communications Applications (CCA) wrote to the then NTRO chairman K V S S Prasad Rao claiming that the use of satellite communication (SATCOM) equipment on board unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was “never a part of the original request for proposal (RFP) or tender” and “hence no technical evaluation was carried out” at any stage by his division.

Although the SATCOM equipment were to be procured from two Israeli companies, Israeli Aerospace Industry (IAI) and ELTA, visits by CCA officers to these firms in Israel yielded little. “In all meetings (at least four times in Tel Aviv) CCA has been requesting IAA/ELTA to give details of the antenna and other systems associated with SATCOM onboard the UAV. Despite our concerted efforts and repeated demands, IAI/ELTA have refused to part with necessary information,” documents in possession of Deccan Herald say.

Alarmingly, the trials of the SATCOM for UAVs, instead of being carried out in India were undertaken in Australia despite strong objections on the ground that the tests should be carried out in Indian conditions. “The offer of trials outside India was firmly turned down by CCA due to various technical reasons in July-August 2007. Hence the rationale for trials oustide India, despite our strong opposition is not clear to us,” the document of May 9, 2008 says.

The main reason why trials (which were to be witnessed by representatives of the Army, Air Force and the Navy) in Australia were not considered feasible was the IAI/ELTA had provided incomplete information about the antenna proposed for SATCOM onboard UAVs. Besides, it was found that the antenna was “suboptimal” and “did not meet the requisite standard of radiation”, and that power amplifiers required modifications “to be able to meet digital modulation requirements.”

Documents in Deccan Herald’s possession suggest that the Israeli companies failed to demonstrate any SATCOM specialisation for the equipments, including electronic intelligence payload for the UAVs, a project that cost Rs 40 crore.

It was after Mittal was served a memo by the then NTRO adviser (in the rank of additional secretary) M S Vijayaraghavan for objecting to the SATCOM equipment deal that he quit the NTRO and blew the whistle on the goings-on in the country’s communications intelligence organisation. Subsequent internal inquiries and special audits by the CAG in January 2010 (the NTRO was outside the purview of any government audit when it was formed) led to the chargesheeting of seven officers.

A retired senior intelligence officer blamed “those in control of the country’s security apparatus” for NTRO’s “miserable condition.”

Under the scanner:

• Internet monitoring system (Rs 30 cr)
• Information processing software (Rs 5 cr)
• Satellite communication monitoring system (Rs 30 cr)
• Civil works contract in Dehradun (Rs 40 cr)
• Electronic intelligence payload (Rs 30 cr)

-via Deccan Herald

The inside story of squabble between RAW and NTRO – I

Part 1 of 2.

Sheela Bhatt.

When 26/11 happened, IPS officer of 1969 batch Anil Choudhary was senior advisor in the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) after his retirement in 2005.

NTRO, formerly known as National Technical Facilities Organization (NTFO), was founded under the direction of Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani when he was heading the home ministry. Choudhary was then secretary (Internal Security) in the ministry of home affairs.

In his long career Choudhary has served in the Intelligence Bureau where he served as special director before moving on. He has a vast experience in counter-terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir and the North East. Choudhary has also served as minister, community affairs in the embassy of India, Washington D C NTRO.

The country’s premier technical intelligence agency was set up seven years ago after intrusions in Kargil on recommendations of the Kargil committee report headed by Gary Saxena, former chief of R&AW.

NTRO has been involved in couple of scandals including one where spycam was misused to snoop on ladies in toilets of its headquarters in New Delhi. The organisation that has a huge responsibility to catch up with global technology to help counter-terrorism efforts has sadly underperformed in spite of crores of rupees at its disposal.

In this exclusive two-part interview to rediff.com Anil Choudhary gives insight into why NTRO, which reports to the prime minister’s office, failed to come up to expectations. He also suggests how India could tighten its security apparatus. This is the first of a two-part interview with Choudhary.

What was your take on 26/11 as and when it happened?

November 26, was a very sad and shocking day. It showed how unprepared we were to face terror attack from the coastal area. Our preparedness to face the attack from across land border is certainly better but I think we had ignored the soft underbelly of our internal security which was the coastal areas. We had only focused on land borders with Pakistan to stop infiltration. This terrorist act was carried out by people who had actually infiltrated or breached the coastal border.

They came, right in the heart of the city of Mumbai. The terrorists took advantage of the hotchpotch in jurisdiction of the Indian Navy, coast guards etc. in controlling the high seas. The Indian Navy guards our seas, but up to 15 nautical miles it’s guarded by the coast guard and 5 nautical miles by the police; there is practically enough patrolling. In the past smugglers made use of this confusion, but this time it was a terrorist strike.

Can you explain why the NTRO has failed to take off?

You know this was set up in the wake of the Kargil fiasco, after which there was a group of ministers who went into the failure to detect infiltration on our border in Kargil by defence forces and also by the intelligence agencies.

The GOM set up several task forces to go into the entire border security and defence intelligence. They also looked into the intelligence apparatus for both internal and external security. In that task force report, which was headed by former governor of J&K and former chief of R&AW, Gary Saxena, many recommendations were made.

The task force found that there were deficiencies and gaps in technical intelligence generation capabilities of the various intelligence agencies including defence and perhaps the weakest link was the technical intelligence. NTRO was looking at very high technology-based intelligence.

We have made progress in certain private and quieter areas. We have made good progress in the area of satellite imagery for instance. But in more controversial areas like interception of cyber traffic, protecting our cyberspace and telecommunications from invasions, NTRO’s efforts have always run into trouble.

The idea was that the NTRO will be a neutral platform for supplying real time intelligence to all agencies. It was to supply intelligence to RAW, IB and even to the state agencies. The Kargil committee had two options before it. Either to strengthen the existing capabilities of individual agencies or to create a new agency that would be the apex technical intelligence agency.

The idea was that a new agency would not be an intelligence agency as such but would advice the government. But the idea of a new agency was to supply whatever technical help was required by the defence forces, by RAW and by the IB for internal security. Unfortunately the first incumbent R S Bedi, who was selected to lead this new organisation, was from the RAW.

He was perhaps the senior-most RAW officer who was superseded. He didn’t come in a happy mood. C D Sahay became chief of RAW even when he was junior to Bedi. He tried to out do the RAW while in NTRO. RAW was a parallel intelligence agency. Then, everything went wrong.

There was a lot of conflict between RAW and NTRO. Lot of time was wasted in the squabble and then, the government thought okay maybe not an intelligence officer let the scientist head it.

But, the point is that, in my humble view having spent three years in that organisation there is this agency to generate technical intelligence. The perspective has to be intelligence of any analysis done here. It has to be useful and actionable intelligence for all agencies. So, NTRO has to be headed by a person who knows what is required by the agencies and not by a scientist who knows how to do research on the given project.

Part 2 of this interview will be published next week.

-via Rediff News.

Women colleagues filmed in toilet by officials at intelligence agency

Ritu Sarin , Manu Pubby.

The National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), the country’s premier technical intelligence agency set up after the Kargil intrusion, is already under the scanner of the Supreme Court for a slew of alleged irregularities. The latest is a shocking case of officials using secret service funds to illegally film their women colleagues in the toilet.

This happened three years ago but has surfaced only now. It’s been learnt that some women staffers who worked in NTRO’s temporary office in Hauz Khas in New Delhi, complained about a spycam fixed in their toilet with the feed from the camera being accessed by a computer manned by the agency’s counter-intelligence and security unit.

The NTRO, The Indian Express has confirmed, conducted two internal inquiries but did not inform the police or the Prime Minister’s Office, which the agency reports to.

The first inquiry was handled by a senior woman officer following which a formal inquiry — through written orders — was authorized. That inquiry was headed by V K Mittal, the technical head of NTRO who has since left the agency and has moved the Supreme Court alleging mismanagement and financial impopriety there.

Mittal told The Indian Express that he submitted a report to then NTRO chairman K V S S Prasad Rao calling for “suitable legal action” in the case. The spycamera was said to have been bought with secret service funds.

“I took the help of a lady officer who questioned four or five of the women who were victims. But I found that the hard disk of the computer where the feeds from the camera were stored had been overwritten and technically destroyed. I do not want to comment further,” said Mittal.

The computer which recorded the spycam feed, sources said, was manned by an ex-Indian Air Force official who was on leave when a woman staffer — on deputation from the Ministry of Defence — discovered the images and alerted those who figured in them. Sources said some frames of the Corporal himself — adjusting the camera — were found. His house was put under surveillance and his antecedents checked after which he was asked to leave the organisation. The women were also sent back to their parent cadres.

Despite several attempts, NTRO director P V Kumar was not available for comment. The agency’s Director of Security and Counter Intelligence, under whom the matter falls, also did not respond to messages and calls. The Indian Express contacted one of the women who filed the complaint. She said that she didn’t want to speak on the subject.

Former IPS officer Anil Choudhary, who served as NTRO’s advisor during the relevant period (2007-2008) and was involved in investigating the incident, said: “Since there were serious moral issues involved, we took strict action against the person we thought was the culprit. We decided to handle the matter internally and not go to the police.’’

-via Indian Express.

Is intelligence body trying to cover up scam?

Sachin Parashar.

From a potential nerve centre for all intelligence agencies to an embarrassment for the government, the woes of the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) seem far from over. The Central Information Commission (CIC) has now threatened the agency that if it doesn’t furnish information related to the procurement scam, for which it was indicted by the CAG leading to an ongoing government probe, the commission will initiate action against it.

Faced with a corruption scandal, its disregard for the CIC is only likely to fuel allegations of a cover up. A CIC letter dated August 24 to NTRO warns that if the relevant information, as sought by former NTRO scientist and whistleblower V K Mittal in RTI applications, is not provided in the next 10 working days, the commission will take necessary action “without any further reference being made to you”.

Mittal first highlighted the discrepancies in purchase of security equipment in 2009 after which then national security adviser M K Narayanan recommended an audit by CAG which, in turn, highlighted grave misdoings.

As an intelligence agency, NTRO comes under the second schedule of the RTI Act and is not “ordinarily obliged” to give any information, as it argued in a hearing before chief information commissioner Satyananda Mishra in March this year. Mishra, however, agreed with Mittal that since NTRO had itself earlier agreed to provide some of the information related to procurement of equipment and other records, it had no reason to now backtrack.

In all, CIC examined 26 applications seeking information from NTRO. Only in two of these did NTRO provide “rudimentary” information while completely ignoring the remaining ones.

NTRO came into existence after the Kargil war when the government felt the need to have an agency which would deal with technical inputs and help all intelligence agencies. It soon got involved in a turf war with RAW, India’s external intelligence arm, with many accusing the two organisations of only duplicating each other’s capabilities. Since it was formed, government has pumped over Rs 8,000 crore into its functioning.

While not following the March 31 order passed by the chief information commissioner, NTRO also did not bother to challenge it in the high court. Among other things, NTRO is also accused of procuring UAVs which could not be used for gathering intelligence in areas infested by naxalites. An internal inquiry by NTRO had also found officials guilty but its report only recommended minor penalties for the accused officials. The PMO, however, rejected this saying that the offence was too serious to dismissed with a mere minor penalty.

-via The Times of India.

SC wants report on ‘corruption’ in secretive tech intelligence agency

Shiv Shankar Menon, national security advisor, who had ordered inquiry into the scam

Krishnadas Rajagopal , Ritu Sarin.

In this season of scandal, the Supreme Court today sought an explanation from the government on allegations of corruption and financial irregularities in yet another organisation — this time, the government’s highly secretive technical intelligence wing, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).

Saying that a court-monitored investigation may be required into allegations of swindling, corruption and irregularities in the procurement of crucial equipment by NTRO, the Supreme Court today sought a report from the government on the action taken so far.

A bench led by Justice R V Raveendran issued notices to the Union of India through the Prime Minister’s Office, the Central Vigilance Commission, the NTRO through its chairman, and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), which had exposed the alleged irregularities involving top NTRO bosses in a “special audit report” tagged for the first time by the government as “top secret”.

This is the first time that goings-on in an intelligence agency have come in for review by the judiciary.

The NTRO, created in 2004 under the Prime Minister’s Office, essentially deals with missile monitoring, satellite and airborne imagery, cyber patrolling and security, cyber offensive operations, communication support systems, as well as cryptology.

Today’s order was passed on a petition filed by V K Mittal, a senior scientist who had pioneered the formation of the NTRO but later pulled out after being “disgusted” by the agency’s functioning.

Mittal approached the Supreme Court after the Delhi High Court on April 16, 2011 refused to take any action, leaving it to the CAG “to proceed in accordance with law”.

The Supreme Court today expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s status report.

“Disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against some of the officers of NTRO without appreciating the fact that the misdeeds of those officers clearly warrant initiation of criminal proceedings, also of which there is no mention in the status report,” the petition said.

The high court, Mittal said, was merely dismissive about his petition. He argued that since the auditor’s report has been marked “top secret” it will not be placed before Parliament as is the norm.

The scientist, through his advocate Prashant Bhushan, said that initially his complaints had “forced” the PMO and CVC to launch internal inquiries into NTRO, but their reports showed “total inaction” and “total secrecy”. The SC took note of the contention that a thorough investigation calling for all the inquiry reports was necessary as the NTRO is provided with “secret service funds” with no audit control.

“The organisation so far, since the financial year 2005 till date, has been allotted approximately Rs 8000 crore and this is without any detailed CAG audit. Out of total funding, 25 per cent is considered secret service fund of which there is no accounting at all,” his petition said.

The petition has sought the court to call for all reports relating to the NTRO, namely on the CVC inquiry, a single member inquiry at the behest of the PMO as well as the special audit report on the CAG.

The petitioner has alleged instances of “corruption and irregularities” in the procurement of equipment including for UAVs (unmanned air vehicles); Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) payload for Rs 20 crore from the Israelis without sanction by Cabinet Committee on Security; acquisition of a communication system which had an encryption system with Chinese processors and which was later shut down and single-tender purchase of a “gateway based packet switch monitoring sensor system” from ECIL, Hyderabad.”

Mittal has called for the audit report to be placed in Parliament failing which its contents should be shared with the bench hearing the matter. In his petition, Mittal has alleged rampant “misuse of funds, nepotism, favouritism, misuse of official position and falsification of facts” in the manner NTRO was being run.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Mittal said that with the Supreme Court now hearing the NTRO case, he was confident that the details of the CAG audit would be shared, at least with the judges on the bench. “Beginning with the NTRO, the process of accountability in all intelligence agencies should start. The Government simply cannot bury inquiry reports of inquiries they have ordered and audit objections of the CAG and not take action on recommendations and findings.”

He claimed that with the Supreme Court admitting his petition, the issue of SS (secret service) funds would also be discussed in open court. In his petition, Mittal has alleged that 25% of NTRO’s budget was “considered” SS funds for which there was no accounting or clearances.

-via Indian Express.

Major clean-up in graft-hit intelligence agency

In an unprecedented move, the government has initiated a set of sweeping actions to clean up the controversy-ridden technical intelligence agency NTRO (National Technical Research Organization) including disciplinary proceedings against its second in command. The move comes in the wake of allegations of wrongdoing, including alleged corruption in purchases, in the agency.

Sources told TOI that the government was in the process of identifying a secretary-rank officer to hold the formal inquiry against NTRO additional secretary Dr M S Vijayaraghavan, the second in command of the intelligence agency. The government has already served a chargesheet on the official for major penalties including possible dismissal from service. “No comments,” Vijayaraghavan said when asked for his reaction.

“We are initiating a host of actions against accused officials based on the findings of a single-man committee and the special audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General,” a government source said. The single-man committee, headed by NTRO chief P V Kumar, was appointed by the Prime Minister’s Office, and the CAG audit was necessitated after several allegations of misdeeds were raised by many including a former NTRO employee, and government agreed to the audit. In the wake of the findings of CAG and inquiry committee, several disciplinary proceedings have been put in place at the instance of the PMO, sources said. The PMO has also sought regular Action Taken Reports on various issues raised by the CAG and the one-man inquiry report.

Besides Vijayaraghavan, the NTRO has served chargesheet on a director-rank officer for major penalty including his possible dismissal for hiding crucial facts of his employment when he joined the agency, sources said.

The government has also initiated a detailed investigation under an internal committee into the appointment of several other employees of NTRO, based on the findings of irregularity pointed out by the CAG. Almost two dozen appointments in NTRO, without proper procedures and some based on incorrect qualifications, are under scrutiny, they said. The inquiry committee is also looking at several wrongful promotions.

Sources said on the financial front, the CAG had raised red flags over two major spending by NTRO – on the procurement of payloads for the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) fleet of NTRO and on the way financial clearances were granted for the construction of UAV base in Dehradun. In the former case, the government does not agree with CAG findings since it would have been impossible to integrate any payload into a UAV. “The only way to ensure complete integration of payload was to go through the single vendor route,” sources said.

The NTRO has been reeling under a series of scandals and allegations since its inception after the Kargil conflict. It was set up as the country’s premier technical intelligence agency that could gather technical intelligence using satellites, UAVs and through monitoring of internet and other communications.

-via The Times of India

Video – India’s intelligence scam gets bigger

PMO initiates probe into shoddy NTRO UAV deal

J. Gopikrishnan.

With yet another scam threatening to rock the UPA Government, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has finally initiated an inquiry, following the CAG report, into irregularity in the purchase of Rs 450 crore worth Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAV) by National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).

Sources said the PMO took the action after CAG submitted its report on the functioning of the technical intelligence wing of NTRO, which works directly under the National Security Advisor. However, according to highly placed sources, the PMO is yet to decide whether to table the CAG report in Parliament. The report was submitted to the President in the second week of February.

Sources told The Pioneer that the PMO had asked NTRO to explain the manipulation of the approval of Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in the purchase UAVs, which are presently defunct.

Sources said following the PMO’s directive, the NTRO summoned its former officials who were engaged in the dubious purchase of UAVs in 2007 from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

Among those summoned by NTRO are some Major Generals, who were on deputation to the organisation, as well some senior finance officials, sources said. “These officials were directly involved in the purchase of UAV,” sources said.

According to sources, a section in the Government is trying to scuttle the tabling of the CAG report in Parliament citing that it was marked “top secret”. But CAG officials claim that any of their reports submitted to the President has to be ultimately tabled in Parliament and sent to the Public Accounts Committee.

In 2007, the CCS had approved Rs 300 crore for the purchase of UAVs, but NTRO’s top brass spent additional Rs 150 crore for purchase of satellite link and electronic intelligence link from Israeli vendors.

The NTRO chairman is empowered to make payment up to Rs 20 crore without any approval from the top. But the NTRO chief circumvented the rules by incurring the additional expenses of Rs 150 crore in several installment below Rs 20 crore. The CAG report indicted former NTRO chairman KVSS Prasada Rao and current advisor MS Vijayaragavan for this misdeed.

In its damaging report on NTRO, the sensitive organisation under the Prime Minister, the CAG exposed that the UAV machines provided by the Israeli vendors had become non-functional. The satellite link purchased was not at all meant for dedicated transmission, as it was an open mode of transmission and any body could download the sensitive data sent from UAVs. Later the network regulator, under the department of telecom had shot down the usage of these UAVs due to the absence of a dedicated satellite link, said sources. The entire UAVs are now grounded.

The CAG report says that it was shocking to note that the NTRO’s top brass had accepted the claim of the Israeli vendors that the “satellite link was successfully tested in Australia.”

MK Narayanan was the National Security Advisor (NSA) when NTRO executed this dubious deal.

This is the first time CAG conducted the audit of an intelligence agency. On complaints from whistleblowers, the CAG decided to undertake the audit in December 2009 even though it was vehemently opposed by Narayanan. After the Prime Minister overruled Narayanan’s objections, the CAG started the audit in January 2010.

-via The Pioneer