As the Army battles with "hollowness" in terms of lack of weaponry and ammunition, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has expressed serious concern over critical deficiency in availability of ammunition and quality of ammunition supplied by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB).
In its report on ammunition management in Army tabled in Parliament on Friday, the CAG noted that the deficiencies persisted despite the watchdog flagging the issue in its report in 2015. The report comes in the backdrop of the Army's preparedness to fight an intense war ranging from 10 to 40 days hampered by the shortage.
The CAG observed no significant improvement in the availability of ammunition had taken place and out of a total of 152 types of ammunition, the stock of 121 types of ammunition(80 per cent) was below the authorization level of 40 days of fighting intense war. Moreover, the availability of 55 percent types of ammunition was below minimum inescapable requirement(MARI) to be maintained for operational preparedness. Also, 40 per cent types of ammunition were in critical level having stocks of less than ten days, the report said.
Further, majority of the procurement cases from other than Ordnance Factory Board which were initiated by the Army during 2009-2013 were still pending, it said.
Incidentally, the Government two weeks back granted full powers to the Army Vice Chief to procure critical spares and ammunition for tanks, artillery guns and armoured personnel carriers without approval from the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC).