Armed forces sufficiently equipped to defend the country, says Jaitley

Indian armed forces are “reasonably and sufficiently equipped” to defend the sovereignty of the country, defence minister Arun Jaitley asserted on Tuesday.

Jaitley’s response in the Rajya Sabha came after opposition members raised the issue of defence preparedness in the wake of a CAG report flagging that the Indian Army was facing a critical shortage of ammunition that can last just 10 days of war.

The CAG has stated the army faces a shortfall of 40%, that is 61 out of 152 types of ammunition available were meant for less than 10 days of fighting a war. The army is supposed to hold stocks of ammunition for 40 days of an intense war.

Jaitley said the CAG report has reference to the shortage of ammunition in relation to a point of time.

“Subsequently thereafter, significant progress has been made,” he said. “Procedures (for procurement of arms and ammunition) have been simplified, powers decentralised and the armed forces are reasonably and sufficiently equipped,” he said.

However, the opposition was not satisfied with the reply and put tough posers to the government. “When was procedure simplified,” asked Anand Sharma of the Congress and then claimed that the decision was taken just a few days back.

“For three years nothing was done,” he said, adding that there has been no full-time defence minister in the country and the earlier one, Manohar Parrikar, was a “non-performer”.