Days after the September 18 Uri attack in which 19 Indian army soldiers were killed, the higher echelons of government went into a huddle. Military retaliation was among the options discussed by the cabinet committee on security. This was when the forces revealed to the government the critical voids in its ammunition reserves.
The army was deficient in four to five critical items of ammunition. These included armour piercing fin stabilised discarding sabot (APFSDS) ammunition fired by its T-72 and T-90 main battle tanks for which it held just one day of war wastage reserves (WWR). Ammunition needed to meet war requirements during an operation is termed WWR. The IAF’s Su-30 fighter jets and Mi-35 gunships also did not have ammunition. The revelations galvanised the political leadership into action. Bureaucratic channels were bypassed and emergency powers delegated to the vice-chiefs of the army and air force to push purchases. The MoD under defence minister Manohar Parrikar decided to fast-track imports.
So, in late September, the MoD sent out empowered committees comprising a senior bureaucrat, an armed forces representative and a member of the defence finance wing with wishlists. The committees went to ammunition suppliers in Russia and Israel with indents for buying several million dollars worth of ammunition. The wishlists include rockets and gun ammunition for Mi-35 helicopter gunships and Su-30 fighter jets, 155 mm ammunition for the Bofors howitzers, and 125 mm APFSDS ammunition for the tank fleet.
The urgency was evident in the indents-the MoD was willing to buy up existing stocks as well as off production lines. Factories were asked to identify time-frames of possible delivery, from ‘immediate’, within ‘one month’, ‘two months’ and ‘three months’. Army officials confirmed that several contracts had been finalised and deliveries of ammunition had begun. The value of the contracts is estimated to be close to Rs 5,000 crore, just for ammunition. “The purchases are easily the largest fast-track procurements since Operation Parakram in 2001,” says one official.
Fast-track purchases bypass the regular defence procurement procedure (DPP), a tedious process which takes 5-8 years. Fast-track procedures (FTP) telescope the regular acquisition process, which takes up to a decade, into just nine months.
FTP was first introduced in the 2002 DPP manual which guides India’s military buying. The 2016 manual extended FTP to apply to items “where undue/unforeseen delay… seem to be adversely impacting the capacity and preparedness of the regular and special forces”.
The special forces which conducted surgical strikes across the LoC on September 29, have especially come in for attention. Requirements for limited quantities of assault rifles, thermal imagers, light machine guns and rocket launchers (see box: The Quick Draw) have been put in for them. Procurements like those for imported anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) for the weaponised variants of the Dhruv advanced light helicopter are also being fast-tracked. Through FTPs, senior army officials say, they plan to push up war stocks to cater to 10 days of intense war fighting, eventually building up to 14 days worth of stock. No one is talking war just yet. Not even in the currently tense security situation following the surgical strikes. Restocking, the military says, gives it the flexibility, endurance and confidence in logistics for its operational plans should a contingency arise. “It increases the number of options available to us,” one general says. The army hopes to make good its shortfalls within the next three months. “War endurance for the stipulated period is necessary to deal with all possible operational contingencies and especially for creating military conditions, through strategic offensive manoeuvres that ultimately contribute to the realisation of political ends,” says former army chief General Bikram Singh.
WHY THE SHORTAGES?
The MoD’s notoriously inefficient procurement process is to blame for acquisition delays. It takes the ministry at least seven years to buy new weapon systems. The army, which has found itself unable to acquire even basic items like assault rifles, ballistic helmets and bulletproof jackets for its troops, also shares some of the blame. Ammunition purchases are on the slow track. In May last year, a CAG report tabled in Parliament put the army’s WWR stocks at less than half the mandate calling for 40 days intense fighting. The WWR concept, first approved by the government in April 1979, stipulated a national stockpile of ammunition required to fight a battle for a 30-day intense period and another 30 days at the normal rate. The WWR scales were revised in October 2010 to cater for 40 days ‘intense fighting’.
A 2015 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on ammunition management covered the years between 2008 and 2013. An ammunition roadmap drawn up by the Indian army in 2012 for building up stock to 50 per cent by March 2015 and 100 per cent by 2019 failed. Stocking even at the minimum acceptable risk level (MARL) of 20 days was not ensured. Nearly 74 per cent of ammunition (125 out of 170 types) reserves were below MARL levels as of March 2013. This had seriously impacted the operational preparedness of the army because the void had grown from 15 per cent in 2009 to 50 per cent by March 2013. High caliber ammunition-used by the 155 mm Bofors artillery guns-made up nearly 84 per cent of the shortage in the five-year period.
Senior army officials, however, say stocking 40-day WWR scales is simply unrealistic. “We have neither the storage capacity nor the land to store such vast ammunition stocks,” says a senior army officer. This possibly explains why the armed forces, with their current round of purchases, are only pushing to meet a requirement of stocks for the minimum 14 days of intense war fighting.
The CAG report attributed the reasons for the failure to build the 40 days ‘intense fighting’ WWR to budgetary constraints and also to inadequate production capacity within the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB). The OFB has repeatedly failed to meet targets despite the fact that 10 of its 41 factories are exclusively devoted to producing ammunition and explosives. One reason frequently cited by the OFB for delays is that they are never given adequate time to procure raw material and streamline production. Even this excuse has been exposed now. The MoD placed a five-year order for ammunition to the OFB in January 2010 but it could meet just over 70 per cent of the army’s requirements.
Another major reason for the low ammo stocks is slow imports. The CAG report found that no ammunition procurement took place for nine items of ammunition identified for import between 2008 and 2013. The reasons ranged from a single vendor situation, complexities in transfer of technology, delay in finalisation of qualitative requirements to delays in finalising import contracts. Still more worrisome is the fact that the fast-track purchases have been anything but. Sometimes, they take as long as purchases through the regular procurement route. Fast-track purchases contracted during the Kargil war, arrived long after the conflict had ended. This continued even during Operation Parakram in 2001-’02. A 2006 CAG report noted how fast-track purchases which were to have come in 12 months arrived only after four years. If the MoD has learnt anything from the past, the current round could be different.
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