Monday, April 30, 2012

Par panel rips through Antony’s military preparedness claims

Nearly 20 days after Defence Minister AK Antony termed Army Chief General VK Singh’s concern on ammunition shortage as “rumours”, the Parliamentary Panel on defence confirmed the chinks in the military preparedness of the Indian Army. 
 
The Parliamentary Panel termed the army-aviation, tank ammunition and artillery as the Achilles Heel of the Indian Army.

In its report tabled in the Parliament on Monday, the Standing Committee on Defence said: “The Committee fails to understand how the Army would be able to address the issue of critical shortages of armaments. The Committee strongly feels that the issue of shortage of armaments with Army at various fronts, need immediate attention.”

However, the Defence Ministry in its Annual Defence Report 2011-12 had contended that the Army was in pink of health with all the modernization programmes on track. The report was followed by Antony rubbishing the reports of ammunition shortages as “rumours”. “These are all rumours. I can assure you that the country is fully prepared. India is in much stronger position compared to the past. There may always some short comings, that also is in the process of filling up,” Antony had said.



The report observed “huge” gaps between the sanctioned and existing machines with Army Aviation. As per the data in the report, the Army is short of 155 helicopters. And the existing Cheetah/Chetak helicopters used for maintenance at high-altitude forward bases are ageing and in dire need of replacement. However, the efforts to replace the rotor wing machines have been stalled repeatedly as the tender for 197 helicopters was scrapped in 2007 and the new tender is also on the verge of cancellation.

"If the sanctioned and the existing strength is compared, there is shortage of 18 Cheetah, 1 Chetak, 76 Advance Light Helicopter and 60 Advance Light Helicopter (Weapons Systems Integrated) with Army Aviation," the report observes.



Concurring with the Army Chief, who had red-flagged the shortage of critical tank ammunition in his letter to the Prime Minister on March 12, the Panel said: “Tank ammunition is another critical area having shortages. The problems with regard to tank ammunition have further compounded due to blacklisting of IMI (Israeli Munitions Industries).”


The Army’s armoured piercing tank ammunition depleted critically following the blacklisting of the Israeli Firm IMI. The force has been dependent on the firm for its ammunition after the Ordnance Factory Board’s ammunition failed to pass the trials.

On the issue of artillery, the Committee comprising of MPs deplored on how upgradation of Bofors gun has taken such a long time.


Expressing alarm over how these deficiencies have been allowed to linger on for so long, the Committee has recommended fast-tracking of the procurement.

4 comments:

  1. How can the Army be on the elite and efficient fighting machine its is supposed to be when the General who leads it does not know is own age.

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    1. No sir, the General is forced to accept the age that the Government assigns him. The Govt tells him in which year he was born, supported in this venture by a Supreme Court ruling

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    2. Actually it is the general who is confused.He has got two different years on different documents. Also if he was so sure about his age, why did he not say so when he was promoted as COAS or before that throughout his term in the army? Why speak about it at retirement. He had no problems with this 'wrong' records as he puts it to get seniority and the post of COAS. When it is time to step down, he has issue with it?
      He has severely dented the credibility of Army and continues to do so with his gimmicks and attempts at revenge by leaking internal matters.

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  2. Those who call the General as confused are trully Indians.Always focus on the non-issue and ignore the real issue - a product of the Congress & BJP parties. The MoD if full of greedy selfish people and is being led by an equally incompetent person that will compromise the country's security to satisfy his ego is the issue. Not the general's age. Grow up and smell the coffee. If the Chinese or Pakis attack us today, it will be sheer grit of the Indian soldier that wins us the was (if we do). There is a lot of coverage of India launching an RFI for this and that but very little has resulted in orders being placed for actual weapons for the army (not IAF or IN). Our army is strong but the govt has weakened their means of fighting and survival.

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