The news that trickled in last month that the Army has been delegated special financial powers by the Government to make up its critical deficiencies in ammunition and spares was received with much satisfaction in the uniformed community especially among those whose responsibility it is to ensure that the fighting troops get the wherewithal to prosecute the military aims that the Government sets out for them.
Ever since the leaked letter by the then COAS Gen VK Singh to the PM in March2012 bemoaning the critical state of war fighting equipment (the term he used was ‘critical hollowness’) especially the shortage of ammunition which in some cases had fallen to dangerous levels, this issue has been flagged repeatedly by successiveChiefs of Army Staff. The earlier Government headed by Shri Manmohan Singh with the Defence Minister Shri AK Anthony both of whom served concurrently for 10 years, perhaps believed the threat of conventional war to be either non-existent or negligible enough not to warrant even a making up of deficiencies let alone a sustained build up. Or perhaps the view was that making up our critical shortageswould unnecessarily ‘spook’ our adversaries into doing something rash and would be seen by the international community as belligerence on our part. Whatever be the case, it is regrettable that no concrete steps were taken other than setting up of committees to work on and fine tune the procurement procedures both through the capital route as well as through the revenue route to make the system more responsive and error free.
What has changed between then and now is that the current Government has fathomed the seriousness of the issue and has moved to empower the VCOAS to move ahead without having to look over his shoulder. While such a change may not be a big deal for the Navy or for the Air Force as their procurements are mainly big ticket items, it is certainly a huge deal for the Army whose current holdings of major war fighting equipment cannot be brought to bear on the enemy and would be rendered hors de combat ab initio in the absence of critical spares and ammunition.
So what has this Government actually done? First of all and perhaps a case of better late than never, the Government has finally accepted the inability of the ordnance factories to meet the annual targets set by the army that they, the factories themselves agree to in the first place. To recoup the deficiency of some critical ammunition items ex import, ten separate contracts in respect of various ammunition items have been signed under the delegated financial powers of the VCOAS. To diversify the supply chain, the army is procuring ammunition from private industry as well as PSUs, a domain that was entirely of the Ordnance Factory Board thus far. More importantly, in keeping with the Make in Indiaphilosophy coupled with the Strategic Partnership Model, this Government has walked the talk. ‘Requests For Proposals’ for various types of ammunition items, 22 in all, have been issued to Indian companies for the first time in our history since Independence. Invitation of bids have been asked for supplying yearlyquantities, for a contractual period of ten years under ‘Manufacture of Ammunition for Indian Army by Indian Industry’ initiative of the Government. Full powers have be given to the Army HQ to procure operationally cr itical ammunition and spares parts, if the levels fall below the laid down limits that have been re-defined so as not to allow the fighting potential of the army to be degraded at any given point in time. Additional steps include monitoring of delivery to the Army by the manufacturers by fixing numeri cal targets instead of financial targets, strict budgetary controls, an eagle eye focus on quality and an increase in storage capacities.
Coupled with this and consequent to the devastating fire that took place last year in the ammunition depot at Pulgaon near Nagpur leading to a loss of nineteen precious lives, the MoD, has approved a procedure for disposal of dangerous ammunition and regularisation of losses for defective ammunition to bring in accountability in the functioning of ammunition factories that are under the Ordnance Factory Board which till now were not held accountable. However, much remains to be done on the major issue of quality checks during manufacturing. Be that as it may, all that remains to be seen is whether adequate budgetary allotments will be made available in the time frame laid down so that such critical equipment, ammunition and spares are in the hands of the fighting formations if and well before the balloon goes up.
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