Our systems need reform: Army Chief

‘Procurement rules hold us hostage, hinder defence modernisation’

Chief of Army Staff Gen. M.M. Naravane on Thursday hit out at the bureaucratic procurement process which he says was holding defence modernisation “hostage”, and called for a “revolution in bureaucratic affairs” to realise the vision of “self-reliance”.

The Army Chief pointed out that the new weapon acquisition policy -Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020, which came into force around four months back -- has 681 pages against the earlier policy Defence Procurement Procedure 2016, which had just 450 pages. He said former defence minister Manohar Parrikar had once remarked that our entire procurement process based on distrust.

“We are not being able to fast-track the process of acquisition. It is because we have tried to cater for every contingency and every loophole. This results in the acquisition process getting tied up in knots. To that end what has happened is that the process and procedures, rather than the product, have become paramount and these are holding hostage our defence modernisation,” said Gen. Naravane.

“The laborious, timeconsuming, often rigid, stages of this acquisition process also create delays in the acquisition cycle. In this cycle better

versions of these equipment become available than in the original contract. But there is still no scope for negotiations to incorporate these new features and to make any mid-course corrections,” Gen. Naravane said. He pointed out that any contemplated change takes this already delayed cycle back to the starting point. “And then you have to start once again, so this becomes a vicious cycle. We need to be able to fast-track all these things. Since we made the rules, we should also have the latitude to override them. Rules should be userfriendly for the customer, that is the armed forces, as well as the manufacturer. This waiver clause must be there to cater to operational conditions and to accommodate different specifications then were originally promulgated,” the Army Chief said. The aim should be to end up the product fastest rather than trying to go through all the process and all the stages as a mandatory kind of requirement, he added.

The Army Chief said once skis for snowbound terrain were rejected as the vendor offered ultra-light skis weighing 1.6 kg against formulated qualitative requirements (QR) of 2 kg-5 kg. Similarly, “punji”, which are sharp pointed spikes used as obstacles, were rejected as it was found to weigh heavier, at 6 kg, against notified requirement between 3-5 kg.