The proposed system, called the High Frequency Radio Communication Network (HFRC), was to be the MEA's lifeline during civil wars, coups and natural calamities -- but is yet to be fully commissioned even 12 years after it was conceived.

The PAC investigated the malfunctioning of the network after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) declared ``infructuous'' the Rs 29.16-crore spent by the MEA so far on the network. The PAC confirmed the findings and has concluded that the use of sub-standard equipment and MEA's inept handling of the project have made the objective of creating an emergency voice and data network seem ``unattainable'' in the foreseeable future.

Senior MEA officials said they had studied the PAC's findings and were taking the necessary remedial measures. ``We will try and beef upthe network and while doing so will consider the chances in technology which have occurred since the project was conceived,'' an official said.

The PAC's report reveals that the network -- estimated to cost Rs 10.5 crore in 1987 -- has been plagued with problems since its inception. The HFRC was to be fully operational by mid-1989 but this deadline, Foreign Secretary KRaghunath told the Committee, was obviously a ``gross underestimate.'' The Foreign Secretary has agreed now that before setting up a sophisticated communication system, all parameters should have been figured out and judged in advance.

However, poor monitoring and maintenance as well as delay in importing spares gradually rendered the HFRC defunct and dysfunctional. The network in Delhi comprises a huge transmitting station located in Greater Kailash; a receiving station at Chattarpur and a control room at MEA's offices in Akbar Bhavan. These three locations are connected through a microwave link to 27 missions located in countries ofstrategic importance as well as to a transit station located at Accra, Ghana.

The aim was to have data and voice transmission when satellite links or the regular telephone switching network was inoperative, on the pattern of systems functioning in several other countries.

But the audit and inspection have revealed that in New Delhi, two of the three transmitters are at present non-operational for want of spares and that software bugs have developed because of which equipment in Accra could not be fully commissioned. Despite attempts, these as well as other software problems plaguing equipment in Akbar Bhavan could not be rectified by the American firm which supplied bulk of the equipment to the MEA. The firm, Mackay Co, had landed a $ 5.3-million contract from the MEA in 1998 but has failed to repair a majority of the malfunctioning equipment or buy back uninstalled equipment worth $ 8,60,098.

The situation in the missions selected for the MEA's high-tech emergency link is worse. The PAC report statesthat receivers and antennas are still to be installed in five missions Georgetown, Paramaribo, Port-of-Spain, Ottawa and Kuala Lumpur. Of the remaining 22 missions, 10 have been identified with ``serious'' equipment problems. These are Jakarta, Bangkok, Dar-es-Salaam, Antananarivo, Muscat, Maputo, Damascus, Baharain, Lagos and Jeddah.

Only voice links could be established in 11 Indian missions and date links could not be commenced because of software deficiencies. These partly-functional missions are Accra, Harare, Kampala, Windhoek, Abu Dhabi, Riyad, Lusaka, Khartoum, Cairo, Kuwait and Nairobi. In fact, it is only on two occasions when Rs 29-crore HFRC was put to use. The first was in Lagos during the disturbances in 1993 and the second a year later when when flights from Muscat had to be monitored due to the plague epidemic in India.

In both the cases, there was no breakdown of other modes of communications and thus the claim that the HFRC was vital as the only means of communication duringemergencies, the report notes, does not hold good.Some shocking instances of MEA's lackadaisical approach towards emergency link are exposed. Four of the 13 message terminals located in MEA's headquarters in South Block, for instance, were not functioning since MEA could not obtain telephone lines from the MTNL.

The other crippling problem has been the dearth of trained personnel handling the equipment. The report notes that while the MEA set up four zonal maintenance centres in Hong Kong, Dubai, Harare and New York, no additional staff was appointed for the HFRC project equipment.

Officials in both the TCIL and VSNL, handling maintenance of the HFRC receivers and antennas told The Indian Express that frequent transfers of MEA's desk officers, absence of training and the lack of spares were among the problems they faced.