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Govt. planning to corporatise ordnance factories

SR-91

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Plan is to change them into PSUs to make them more accountable
Days after terminating the contract of DRDO chief Dr. Avinash Chander, the government is planning to corporatise some of the ordnance factories.

The plan is to initially corporatise about 10 ordnance factories and turn them into Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) to make them more accountable and increase their capabilities, sources in Defence Ministry said.

Those under consideration are the cloth making and equipment factories in the Kanpur belt. A note on this matter has already been circulated in the highest echelons of the government and the proposal is likely to get the government nod by April, the sources added.

These factories are into manufacturing personnel clothing, parachute material, small arms, metallurgical equipment, shells and other such equipment.

The move comes close on the heels of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar promising a major overhaul of the DRDO and defence production units.

This is not for the first time though that corporatisation of ordnance factories is being considered. In the UPA I regime too, the government mooted such a proposal in accordance with the recommendations of the Vijay Kelkar committee towards increasing self-reliance in defence preparedness. However, the proposal did not go through due to opposition from trade unions.

In the blog of the Indian National Defence Workers Federation, its General Secretary, R. Srinivasan has stated that in a meeting with the Chairman, Ordnance Factories Board (OFB) at Kolkata, they learnt that the government was against further expansion of the ordnance equipment factories.

Mr. Parrikar had asked the OFB Chairman to focus on core-competency areas namely ammunition, hardware, armoured vehicles and artillery and in future ordnance factories have to compete with other firms for supplying equipment to the armed forces.

Govt. planning to corporatise ordnance factories - The Hindu

:yahoo::yahoo::yahoo:
 
Waiting for naysayers to come and find fault....
 
Plan is to change them into PSUs to make them more accountable
Days after terminating the contract of DRDO chief Dr. Avinash Chander, the government is planning to corporatise some of the ordnance factories.

The plan is to initially corporatise about 10 ordnance factories and turn them into Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) to make them more accountable and increase their capabilities, sources in Defence Ministry said.

Those under consideration are the cloth making and equipment factories in the Kanpur belt. A note on this matter has already been circulated in the highest echelons of the government and the proposal is likely to get the government nod by April, the sources added.

These factories are into manufacturing personnel clothing, parachute material, small arms, metallurgical equipment, shells and other such equipment.

The move comes close on the heels of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar promising a major overhaul of the DRDO and defence production units.

This is not for the first time though that corporatisation of ordnance factories is being considered. In the UPA I regime too, the government mooted such a proposal in accordance with the recommendations of the Vijay Kelkar committee towards increasing self-reliance in defence preparedness. However, the proposal did not go through due to opposition from trade unions.

In the blog of the Indian National Defence Workers Federation, its General Secretary, R. Srinivasan has stated that in a meeting with the Chairman, Ordnance Factories Board (OFB) at Kolkata, they learnt that the government was against further expansion of the ordnance equipment factories.

Mr. Parrikar had asked the OFB Chairman to focus on core-competency areas namely ammunition, hardware, armoured vehicles and artillery and in future ordnance factories have to compete with other firms for supplying equipment to the armed forces.

Govt. planning to corporatise ordnance factories - The Hindu

:yahoo::yahoo::yahoo:

These ordnance factories used to receive govt protection and sure shot orders ...

I am sure once they are made to compete with each other ...their quality and efficiency will improve .

Great step forward .

I feel some of the changes that are happening will show true impact after 2-3 decades .

impact of modi's legacy on India will be realized and understood in its entirety after only few decades .

Transformation of India is indeed underway .
 
In all deals where transfer of technology is negotiated, the nominated recipient is always a DPSU, even if a private sector company is better placed in terms of infrastructure and know-how to absorb the technology.The Indian public sector has got used to a position of pre-eminence. Its hold over defence orders is total. It thrives because of its monopolistic clout and not because of any displayed excellence.Dependence only on public sector and imports has lead to the present sorry scheme of things in defence where the services have been fighting obsolescence despite our sky rocketing import bills. Our joint ventures have not yielded any positive results for example have we really assimilated any worthwhile technology over the last fifty years during MiG manufacture.

Every country has to learn critical technologies the hard way as we did in our space programs developing even cryogenic engine on our own. Incremental FDI’s, strengthening DPSU’s or even modernising OF’s will not help, We have to bring in cultural change of taking pride in the Indian and the indigenous. For all major defence projects the user, private & public sector should be on the same page. For example the requirement of 60,000 plus assault rifles can be met part import and part indigenising or re-engineering. Inputs can be taken from our Insas experience and know how in the Ordnance factories-while mass production can be at L&T, Godrej , Tata’s or M&M. It will be best to phase out public sector from research and production in non-core domains like food, clothing, chemicals,materials etc and let private sectors make forays into these. DRDO can concentrate on missiles and armaments while Ordnance factories can focus on high explosives and filling. Even propellants can be assigned to the efficient private domain.
 
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