“When I left RAW in June 2004, the case was still hanging fire. However, I have learnt that all 27 were eventually purchased,” Singh writes. The deal, he alleges in the book, “could not have happened without the active support of officers of the Telecom Division of RAW and the Purchase Cell in the Cabinet Secretariat.” Had RAW been under statutory audit, Singh writes, this expenditure would have “been the subject of a Parliamentary question.”

The emblem that never was

Raw spent lakhs of rupees, Singh claims, to have an emblem designed at the suggestion of a senior officer. “A specialist designer was commissioned with the project of creating a suitable logo. The new emblem was inaugurated at a grand function held in the auditorium where an assortment of objects bearing the new crest were displayed. Of course, this was the last time we were to see the emblem. Due to security reasons, it could not be used on letter-heads and neither could we use it on our vehicles or on attire.” Some “diehards,” Singh writes, “bought a few crested whiskey glasses and dinner plates but these could also be used only in the presence of colleagues.” At the end, it turned out to be a “futile exercise, after spending lakhs of rupees, most of it towards the cost of design.”

The VSAT Project

A chapter in the book deals with the Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) network Singh proposed in 2001 for secure voice and high-speed connections between RAW headquarters and important destinations. The plan was cleared and bids received from 14 companies, including one from the private sector about whom doubts were cast on the grounds of security. “After I left RAW, I came to know that the contract had been awarded to Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), a public sector undertaking,” he writes. But there was “tremendous opposition” to the project from within the Telecom Division. Doubts were expressed about the wisdom of going in for the VSAT system, with objections ranging from cost to the nature of technology being used.

... contd.