Zarvan
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BENGALURU: The Narendra Modi government, which has given a war cry for Make in India in the defence sector, has a major battle to win within the country before guarding the borders with home-made equipment. For, 429 types of defence equipment worth Rs 449.40 crore have been sent back to domestic ordnance factories in the past three years, due to quality issues.
According to documents TOI has accessed, this includes 162 types of weapons, which can range from rifles to rocket launchers, 16 categories of combat vehicles, and 52 types of ammunition, the shortage of which has been worrying the world's second largest land army.
The ministry of defence (MoD) said the Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA), which provides second party quality assurance (QA), has returned these equipment for rectification.
Each of these categories could have seen thousands and lakhs of units being sent back. "If you are talking about ammunition, let's take an example of a bullet for an assault rifle. Lakhs of such bullets would've been procured and all of them rendered useless if they didn't meet the quality requirements," a Lieutenant Colonel posted in a peace station told TOI.
The documents reveled that as of the third week of December 2014, the ammunitions had quality issues, severely affecting the forces' ability at a time when ceasefire violations by Pakistan and intrusions from China are posing threats.
"The fact that the Ordnance Factory Board and the factories, which have the primary responsibility of ensuring quality, have cleared them is a matter of concern given that these establishments are the stable from which are the forces are armed," another officer said.
In 2013-14, equipment worth Rs 144.65 crore was returned for rectification (RFR), an increase of Rs 12.06 crore from 2012-13 when the worth of equipment under RFR was Rs 132.59. In fact, the cost of equipment under RFR in 2012-13 had seen a considerable drop of Rs 39.57 from Rs 172.16 in 2011-12.
Defence forces grapple with 429 types of defective indigenous equipment - TOI Mobile | The Times of India Mobile Site
According to documents TOI has accessed, this includes 162 types of weapons, which can range from rifles to rocket launchers, 16 categories of combat vehicles, and 52 types of ammunition, the shortage of which has been worrying the world's second largest land army.
The ministry of defence (MoD) said the Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA), which provides second party quality assurance (QA), has returned these equipment for rectification.
Each of these categories could have seen thousands and lakhs of units being sent back. "If you are talking about ammunition, let's take an example of a bullet for an assault rifle. Lakhs of such bullets would've been procured and all of them rendered useless if they didn't meet the quality requirements," a Lieutenant Colonel posted in a peace station told TOI.
The documents reveled that as of the third week of December 2014, the ammunitions had quality issues, severely affecting the forces' ability at a time when ceasefire violations by Pakistan and intrusions from China are posing threats.
"The fact that the Ordnance Factory Board and the factories, which have the primary responsibility of ensuring quality, have cleared them is a matter of concern given that these establishments are the stable from which are the forces are armed," another officer said.
In 2013-14, equipment worth Rs 144.65 crore was returned for rectification (RFR), an increase of Rs 12.06 crore from 2012-13 when the worth of equipment under RFR was Rs 132.59. In fact, the cost of equipment under RFR in 2012-13 had seen a considerable drop of Rs 39.57 from Rs 172.16 in 2011-12.
Defence forces grapple with 429 types of defective indigenous equipment - TOI Mobile | The Times of India Mobile Site
. Dude with 20K posts what have you been on Defence.pk.
