Additional Director General, Perspective Planning is the nodal points man for capability building for the Indian Army.
Early in my stint in this hot seat, we were asked to draft a letter highlighting the ‘Operational hollowness’ in the Indian Army. This communication was sent but unfortunately and mysteriously, leaked to the media, creating ripples. Suddenly, closely guarded information, which could not be ferreted out through parliamentary questions and RTI, was in the open domain. A few months down the line, we were summoned for a special hearing before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence.
Originator of DO having retired, dominant narrative was nuanced to reassure the Committee that while deficiencies existed yet there has been considerable hype and this could be made up for provided necessary funds were allocated. There was consensus and assurance that finances would not be a constraint.
However, Services were asked to prioritise critical requirements and follow fast track approach. For defence planners, those were heady days full of optimism, characterised by revamping of Long Term Perspective Plans (LTPP), capacity audits, Task Forces (TF) headed by Ravindra Gupta and Naresh Chandra and revision of procedures, including the defining document, Defence Procurement Policy (DPP).
The buzz word was ‘capability based’ planning instead of ‘threat based’ plans with a mandate to upgrade from credible to punitive deterrence against Pakistan and from dissuasive to credible deterrence against China. Focus was to shift to Northern border with raising of new Mountain Corps.
Five years have lapsed with a government change in between and it is an apt moment to take stock of the question – where are we on the road to redress hollowness? We have had more committees, including Shekatkar and revised DPP has jettisoned old methods like ‘Buy and Make’ in favour of strategic partnership and indigenous design, development and manufacturing.
Ammunition stocking levels have been pragmatically rationalised in keeping with short war scenario of 10 to 15 days. We seem to be at the take off finals but with too many false starts, how else can we explain deals called off at the very last minute and ever accumulating list of projects in the pipeline? Another committee has been constituted to take stock of pending projects and prioritise them, we can only wish them better luck. With the kind of debate on Rafael, we may end up closing the only fast track government to government route and in the process discrediting a proven aircraft like we did in case of Bofors.
Old soldiers, who burnt midnight oil labouring over such plans, cannot but help share their disappointment at the continued neglect of hollowness and reflect on some relevant issues. The first and foremost is acceptance of the reality of limitation of funds and letting go of hypothetical benchmark of 2 % of GDP. At best, future defence budgets are likely to have graded allocation of 1.8 % that too in the beginning of the term of government, tapering off to 1.6 % in pre-election year, like the current year’s allocation of 1.58 %. The bottom line seems to be development is current concern, defence modernisation can wait.
This forces a transition to pragmatic capability cum effect based planning model. The existing method of ‘bottom up’ planning, which seeks to grab maximum for each stakeholder, has to be replaced by a ‘top down’ model promoting sector specific integrated capability building to achieve the desired effect.
As an example, we should build stand off surgical strike capabilities based on armed drones, cyber warfare and advanced intelligence acquisition systems backed up by Special Forces, equipped with customised helicopters capable of operating in covert domain. Ideally, such projects should be funded and managed through secret special purpose mechanism to bypass red tape and more importantly for surprise and deniability. Such projects should be kept out of DPP and auditor routine.
Our uniformed planners would have to realise that focus is on hybrid war and capabilities for conventional war will have to be optimised at best for a limited war localised to a particular sector. This would effectively lead to relegation of ‘cold start’ option to the backburner. Hence, the thrust has to be on retro-fitting and extending life-spans for existing platforms like tanks.
More needs to be done to drastically cut revenue expenditure by reducing manpower in the logistics stream. Tightening of belt will have to include reducing training costs, yet being battle-ready by extensive use of simulators and developing economical training ammunitions. The writing on wall is clear, economise and modernise.
It is hoped that Government will be able to overcome deeply entrenched lobbies to privatise Ordnance Factories and Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs). Most of these are sitting on huge big real estate, which is a blessing in disguise and a bargaining leverage to make it a win-win model. Depending on successful privatisation and assurance of surge capabilities, stocking inventories can be further rationalised.
While we have demonstrated our resolve and capability at Doklam yet complacency will be suicidal. Relentless and focussed capability building and infrastructure development should not only continue but should be expedited. It may be worth while to consider funding priority projects through separate special purpose fund executed by an empowered TF bypassing cumbersome procedures.
Post elections, hopefully there will be an all party consensus on enhanced allocations for modernisation, redressing hollowness and infrastructure development
Early in my stint in this hot seat, we were asked to draft a letter highlighting the ‘Operational hollowness’ in the Indian Army. This communication was sent but unfortunately and mysteriously, leaked to the media, creating ripples. Suddenly, closely guarded information, which could not be ferreted out through parliamentary questions and RTI, was in the open domain. A few months down the line, we were summoned for a special hearing before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence.
Originator of DO having retired, dominant narrative was nuanced to reassure the Committee that while deficiencies existed yet there has been considerable hype and this could be made up for provided necessary funds were allocated. There was consensus and assurance that finances would not be a constraint.
However, Services were asked to prioritise critical requirements and follow fast track approach. For defence planners, those were heady days full of optimism, characterised by revamping of Long Term Perspective Plans (LTPP), capacity audits, Task Forces (TF) headed by Ravindra Gupta and Naresh Chandra and revision of procedures, including the defining document, Defence Procurement Policy (DPP).
The buzz word was ‘capability based’ planning instead of ‘threat based’ plans with a mandate to upgrade from credible to punitive deterrence against Pakistan and from dissuasive to credible deterrence against China. Focus was to shift to Northern border with raising of new Mountain Corps.
Five years have lapsed with a government change in between and it is an apt moment to take stock of the question – where are we on the road to redress hollowness? We have had more committees, including Shekatkar and revised DPP has jettisoned old methods like ‘Buy and Make’ in favour of strategic partnership and indigenous design, development and manufacturing.
Ammunition stocking levels have been pragmatically rationalised in keeping with short war scenario of 10 to 15 days. We seem to be at the take off finals but with too many false starts, how else can we explain deals called off at the very last minute and ever accumulating list of projects in the pipeline? Another committee has been constituted to take stock of pending projects and prioritise them, we can only wish them better luck. With the kind of debate on Rafael, we may end up closing the only fast track government to government route and in the process discrediting a proven aircraft like we did in case of Bofors.
Old soldiers, who burnt midnight oil labouring over such plans, cannot but help share their disappointment at the continued neglect of hollowness and reflect on some relevant issues. The first and foremost is acceptance of the reality of limitation of funds and letting go of hypothetical benchmark of 2 % of GDP. At best, future defence budgets are likely to have graded allocation of 1.8 % that too in the beginning of the term of government, tapering off to 1.6 % in pre-election year, like the current year’s allocation of 1.58 %. The bottom line seems to be development is current concern, defence modernisation can wait.
This forces a transition to pragmatic capability cum effect based planning model. The existing method of ‘bottom up’ planning, which seeks to grab maximum for each stakeholder, has to be replaced by a ‘top down’ model promoting sector specific integrated capability building to achieve the desired effect.
As an example, we should build stand off surgical strike capabilities based on armed drones, cyber warfare and advanced intelligence acquisition systems backed up by Special Forces, equipped with customised helicopters capable of operating in covert domain. Ideally, such projects should be funded and managed through secret special purpose mechanism to bypass red tape and more importantly for surprise and deniability. Such projects should be kept out of DPP and auditor routine.
Our uniformed planners would have to realise that focus is on hybrid war and capabilities for conventional war will have to be optimised at best for a limited war localised to a particular sector. This would effectively lead to relegation of ‘cold start’ option to the backburner. Hence, the thrust has to be on retro-fitting and extending life-spans for existing platforms like tanks.
More needs to be done to drastically cut revenue expenditure by reducing manpower in the logistics stream. Tightening of belt will have to include reducing training costs, yet being battle-ready by extensive use of simulators and developing economical training ammunitions. The writing on wall is clear, economise and modernise.
It is hoped that Government will be able to overcome deeply entrenched lobbies to privatise Ordnance Factories and Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs). Most of these are sitting on huge big real estate, which is a blessing in disguise and a bargaining leverage to make it a win-win model. Depending on successful privatisation and assurance of surge capabilities, stocking inventories can be further rationalised.
While we have demonstrated our resolve and capability at Doklam yet complacency will be suicidal. Relentless and focussed capability building and infrastructure development should not only continue but should be expedited. It may be worth while to consider funding priority projects through separate special purpose fund executed by an empowered TF bypassing cumbersome procedures.
Post elections, hopefully there will be an all party consensus on enhanced allocations for modernisation, redressing hollowness and infrastructure development
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