As Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Defence Minister get down to serious business of governance, a plethora of challenges face them as regards operational preparedness, modernisation and procurement of critical weapon systems.
Procurement came to a virtual standstill during the UPA regime due to corruption cases thereby affecting induction of artillery guns and fighter jets besides shortage of ammunition of arms and ammunition. In fact, then Army chief General VK Singh wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2012 listing critical shortage of ammunition for tanks, specialised weapons for Special Forces and war wastage reserve to fight a conventional war.
Defence Secretary RK Mathur will flag all these issues while briefing the new Defence Minister and then the Services Chiefs will give a presentation about operational preparedness to the PM and Defence Minister on Tuesday.
Issues like long delayed acquisition of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) worth over Rs45,000 crore, long range artillery guns costing about Rs20,000 crore and infantry rifles worth over Rs10,000 crore will figure prominently.
Contract negotiations for MMRCA with Dassault of France for its fighter jet Rafale are in the final stages but the outgoing Government could not clinch it due to paucity of funds. In fact, the Defence Ministry is likely to seek a budget hike of more than 25 per cent in next budget. The interim budget allocation for defence was Rs2,03,672 crore with Rs89,588 crore comprising capital expenditure and Rs1,34,212 crore as revenue budget.
Moreover, the Army is yet to get modern artillery guns for the last 25 years since the Bofors gun controversy in 1986. Army desperately needs more than 2,000 long range artillery guns and howitzers to overcome “operational hollowness” and equip the China specific Mountain Strike Corps.
The UPA Government gave the go-ahead for this Corps July last year for meeting any threat from China. The new Corps is expected to cost the exchequer more than Rs70,000 crore spread over next five to seven years as more than 40,000 personnel will be recruited besides creating an infrastructure and procuring artillery guns, howitzers and attack helicopters.
Given the state of economy, it will be tough task for the new Government to allocate more funds to the armed forces in the foreseeable future and the new dispensation has reportedly asked the Defence Ministry to list critical issues as most urgent for immediate action.
The Defence Ministry will also seek early action on implementation of Naresh Chandra committee report on higher defence reforms. The committee recommended setting up of three commands — including Cyber, Space and Special Operations to fight a modern network centric war where terrorism plays an important factor.