Home steers clear of AK-47 row

The Ministry said the deal with the Bulgarian firm (M/S Kintex) was finalised only after bringing down the prices earlier quoted by the company. And the deal was worth Rs 53 crore, not Rs 20,000 crore, as reported, it said.

The bids for supply of these rifles by Russia’s Rosoboronexport were rejected after the ministry’s technical committee found they ‘‘did not meet the specifications of the tender’’.

The Russian company had apparently submitted samples of AK-103 rifles instead of AK-47s.

The rifles from another bidder, Romanian company Romtehnica, were also rejected as the samples did not pass the critical tests.

The deal with the Bulgarian company came after one-and-a-half months of negotiations by the Price Negotiating Committee.

‘‘The PNC was able to bring down of prices to $155 dollars each for Fixed Butt and $163 each for Folding Butt rifles, against the quoted price of $184 and $193,’’ the statement said.

On the alleged links with gun-runners, the ministry said: ‘‘It has been certified by the Bulgarian embassy in India that M/S Kintex is a 100 per cent state-owned company of the government of Bulgaria.’’

The ministry said a high-level technical team, led by an Inspector General of the CRPF and including experts from Central Para-Military Forces and the Ministry of Defence, had visited the Kintex production unit in January and was ‘‘fully satisfied with the production facilities in Bulgaria and also the quality of the rifles after putting them through firing tests’’.