The Union Government has empowered the Army to directly procure critical weapons systems and military platforms to maintain combat readiness for short duration intense wars.
The purpose of this new scheme is to maintain an optimum level to fight short intense wars following critical voids in capabilities of Army.
The Army faces severe shortage in ammunition, mainly for artillery guns, air defence, tanks and certain infantry weapons.
This shortage may make it very difficult for Army to fight a short intense war that lasts for 10 to 15 days.
To overcome this issue, Army was pressing the government for ensuring speedy procurement of key military platforms citing evolving security challenges.
Under the new scheme, Vice Chief of Army has been given the full financial powers to procure ammunitions.
Army has been empowered on a routine basis to review the optimum holding state and maintaining it on a recurring manner.
The new procedure will be part of revenue procurement of the Army for in-service equipment and weapons.
As part of it, the Army has been allowed to procure 46 types of ammunition and spares for 10 different types of weapons systems.
The new revenue route for procurement of in-service equipment will not require going through numerous procurement stages which often cause inordinate delays.
Earlier it was necessary to take permission from Defence Acquisition Council (headed by defence minister) or the Cabinet Committee on Security (headed by Prime Minister), for procuring such critical equipment. Thus, new scheme will ensure that the time taken in procuring such equipment is reduced.
