Army not short of arms, ammunition: Jaitley

Indian Army is not short of arms and ammunition, defence minister Arun Jaitley informed the Lok Sabha on Friday after some of the Parliamentarians expressed their worries on a recent CAG report, which red-flagged the shortage.
 
"The armed forces are fully equipped to face any contingency and any shortage of ammunition would be expeditiously made up", Jaitley said during the Question Hour.

The Defence Minister's clarifications came in the wake of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, which highlighted several shortcomings in the ammunition management, but pointed out some improvements in the past two years following a much more critical CAG report in May 2015.

While the Indian Army is still far below in having the War Wastage Reserve to keep an ammunition stock for 40 days, there are some improvements in achieving the minimum acceptable risk level of (MARL) of ammunition (for 20 days) in the last two years, both for standard and high calibre weapons, the CAG said in its follow up audit report presented before the Parliament last week.

Asked what the government would be doing to improve the ammunition stocks, Jaitley said as per the procedure, after tabling in the Parliament CAG reports go to the Public Accounts Committee and if the latter made some recommendations, then action would be taken.

Meanwhile, the army made some emergency purchase of ammunition following last year's Uri terror attack. Earlier this month, the government authorised the Army Vice Chief with more financial powers to purchase 46 types of ammunition and 10 types of spares in order to keep the Army ready for a “short and intense” war.

Jaitley also pointed out that the defence ministry issued Request for Proposal for Indian companies to make the ammunition in collaboration with foreign partners. Responding to another query, the Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre assured the House that no ordnance factory would be closed down and no one would be rendered unemployed.