NEW DELHI – According to the Times of India, the state cannot fight a war beyond 15-20 days due to shortage in its ammunition.
The home-grown Tejas light combat aircraft is still nowhere near being combat-ready despite being in the making for over 30 years.
This grim reality of the critical shortfall in ammunition reserves is adversely impacting the operational readiness of Indian Army as well as the problems dogging the Tejas fighter, which has led to a sharp fall in the number of Indian Air Force fighter squadrons.
On Friday, it was made official by the Auditor General of India. In reports tabled in Parliament, the audit watchdog attacked the Tejas Mark-I jet for being just about 35% indigenous and falling short on as many as 53 technical requirements, greatly reducing its capabilities and survivability in combat.
It also slammed the defense establishment for the dismal management of ammunition in the Army, expressing shock that there was total disregard of the policy to hold ammunition for 40 days of intense fighting under the war wastage reserves (WWR).
“Stocking of 125 of the 170 different types of ammunition was not enough for even 20 days of war-fighting or minimum acceptable risk level requirements. Further, in 50% of the types of ammunition, the holding was critical or less than 10 days in March 2013,” said the comptroller and auditor general (CAG).
The CAG said while the Ordnance Factory Board was failing to meet the requirements due to its limited production capacity, the import route was also proving to be unreasonably slow. In 17 import cases for which acceptance of necessity was accorded in July 2013, no contract could be concluded by December 2014 according to the Times of India.
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