Rajnath holds meet to explore possibilities to make ordnance factories more robust

NEW DELHI: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held a highlevel meeting to explore all possible actions to make ordinance factories more robust as per the prevailing and futuristic defence requirements of the country, sources said on Wednesday.

The meeting comes amid the government's decision to convert the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) into 100 per cent government-owned corporate entities.

The OFB is a defence ministry entity and supplies critical arms and ammunition to the three armed forces and the paramilitary.

In its meeting held in July last year, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), the country's top decision-making body on security-related issues, approved to convert the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) "into one or more than one 100 per cent governmentowned corporate entities".

Addressing a webinar last week on the effective implementation of the Union Budget's provisions in the defence sector, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, "Before independence, we used to have hundreds of ordnance factories. In both the world wars, weapons at large scale were exported from India. But for various reasons, this system was not strengthened as much as it should have been after independence."

"The condition is such that even for small arms, we have to look at other nations. India is amongst the biggest defence importers and this is not a matter of pride," Modi stressed.

In a reply to Parliament last year, Shripad Naik, Minister of State in the Defence Ministry, had said, "The corporatisation of OFB will improve its autonomy, accountability and efficiency in ordnance supplies."