Though a final decision is yet to be taken - RAW will reportedly contest any such plan to dissolve ARC - and if they will do so then they must a good reason for the same.
RAW Will Contest Doval’s Plan to Shut the Agency’s Aviation Wing
India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval. (Photo: Reuters)
The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s external intelligence agency, will not allow the government to wind up its aviation and satellite imaging asset, the Aviation Research Centre, The Quint has learnt.
Highly-placed sources in India’s intelligence community revealed that reports which suggested that the government had taken a decision to shut down ARC are “not true”.
A source said to The Quint,
There has been no decision so far and the RAW leadership is going to put forth its arguments before the government, that it would be unwise to wind up the ARC which has proved to be of immense value to intelligence gathering even as the use of TECHINT [technical intelligence] has grown in recent years and will most certainly expand in the years to come.
Media reports indicated that National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval’s plan involves doing away with the ARC and transferring its aircraft and electronic assets to the National Technical Research Organisation and the Indian Air Force.
A former RAW secretary said,
Given his special operations background, the NSA must know the worth of ARC. Giving away the electronics and aviation assets to other organisations which have no proven track record will mean reconfiguring the needs and requirements of the NTRO and the IAF with the aircraft and electronics equipment that will go to them.
As a likely turf war looms large, a miffed RAW management has shouldered arms and sought the advice of former senior officers to draw up a plan to forbid the government from hiving away an integral part of the agency’s intelligence gathering apparatus which, according to some retired operatives, has done a “remarkable job”, especially in clandestinely capturing photographs of high value targets in Pakistan and China.
Sources recalled the 2004 “tooth and nail” contest between the RAW and the government of the day on transferring ARC assets to the NTRO which was formed that year. Files containing arguments by both sides – those in government who favoured such a transfer and the RAW leadership that fought hard to retain ARC – flew thick and fast.
That contest 11 years ago was won by the RAW which holds administrative and operational responsibility over the ARC. But Doval’s latest move, which could potentially prove debilitating for the country’s external intelligence agency, given the wrangling that is likely to follow, must aim at broader intelligence reforms and not piecemeal tinkering.
Source:-
RAW Will Contest Doval’s Plan to Shut the Agency’s Aviation Wing -
