Antony, Army Chief to review force’s modernization

Nearly a month after taking over the reins of Indian Army, General Bikram Singh will get down to business with Defence Minister AK Antony to review the modernization process of the force that has various issues like ammunition shortage, vintage artillery staring in its face.

Since the time former Indian Army Chief General VK Singh’s confidential letter to the Prime Minister detailing the “hollowness” of the force’s military preparedness leaked, Antony has conducted three review meetings so far to assess the ongoing modernization process and fast track critical acquisitions.

“The review meeting with General Bikram Singh will be first since he assumed office. The meeting will take place in the first week of July after giving a comfortable one month’s time to the new Chief to settle down in his office,” officials said.

General Bikram Singh has a daunting task cut out for him as the army aviation, tank ammunition and Artillery continues to remain Achilles Heel of the 1.2 million-strong force. Many of the key acquisition programmes like 197 light helicopters and; towed and self-propelled artillery guns have been in limbo for ages now.

Both the deals have run into rough weather again. “The Minister has been asking the officials of MoD and the Army to examine the possibility of compressing the time taken for technical evaluations and trials. The Defence Ministry has already increased the financial powers of the service chiefs threefolds and the fourth review meeting will take it forward.”

The force has “huge” gaps between the sanctioned and existing machines with the Army Aviation. As per data 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.

There has been no forward movement on the artillery procurement since the time Singapore Kinetics got blacklisted on corruption charges in 2009 hitting the Army’s modernization plan badly. Ammunition is another area of concern and the situation is further aggravated as the Nalanda Ordnance Factory is yet to become operational after Israeli Munitions Industries was banned following corruption charges.

Both – Antony and General Bikram Singh – are expected to deliberate on the issues when they get down to business in their first review meeting.