NEW DELHI, India -- According to an item published in the latest issue of Indian Military Review as big-tickets continue to get approved by the Defence Acquisition Council, the requirements of the Infantry have been pushed to the back-burner. The long term plan for the modernisation of the infantry have been formulated and documented but the 352-odd infantry battalions continue to suffer from defective small arms, lack of adequate quantities of night vision devices, bullet-proof jackets, and so on.
Giving details, the new issue of Indian Military Review, published from New Delhi argued the case for some basic & inescapable infantary soldier's modernisation needs.
Bullet Proof Jackets(BJP)
The ministry of defence (MoD) “should not play with the lives of Army personnel” by denying them bullet-proof jackets (BPJs) on time, the Parliamentary standing committee on defence has said in its report tabled in Parliament.
The committee noted that the shelf-life even of existing BPJs with the Army would expire by next year, and also slammed the MoD for the “alarming” delay in procurement of BPJs.
“The Committee is perturbed to find that procurement of 1.86 lakh BPJs for which the approval of the MoD’s Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) was obtained on October 19, 2009, and a request for proposal (RFP)... was issued on December 7, 2012, are still not procured. The committee is not at all satisfied with the reply of the ministry... Despite knowing the importance of such a crucial life-saving item, it has taken more than six years to procure after the approval of the DAC” the report stated.
“It is an unpleasant surprise for the committee that in spite of critical shortages of BPJs being highlighted in the previous report of the committee also, no improvement in the situation has taken place, which is alarming. It needs an explanation... The Committee was shocked to learn that shelf-life of existing BPJs was going to expire next year. It is inexplicable on the part of the ministry that all these years, the ministry could not find a source to procure BPJs. It is also a fact that after 2009, no new procurement proposal was made other than 1.86 lakh BPJs for which assessment for requirement was done prior to 2009,” the report further stated.
Assault Rifle
The infantryman’s wait for a new-generation assault rifle may now get longer. India is likely to scrap its four-year-old hunt for new-generation assault rifles with interchangeable barrels for conventional warfare and counter-insurgency operations.
The infantry is not adequately equipped with modular bullet-proof jackets, webbing and light-weight ballistic helmets with internal communication gear.
The 1.18-million strong Army's quest for new rifles for its 382 infantry battalions was made a "Priority-1" project to address the neglect. But the double-barrel foreign rifles on offer – with a 5.56x45mm primary barrel for conventional warfare and a 7.62x39mm secondary one for counter-terror operations – have "not been found robust enough" for the military operations envisaged when the global tender was floated in 2011.
The project was to kick off with the direct acquisition of 65,000 rifles from the selected foreign vendor, at an estimated cost of around Rs 4,850 crore, to equip the 120 infantry battalions deployed on the western and eastern fronts. The Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) was to then subsequently manufacture over 1,13,000 such rifles after getting transfer of technology from the foreign company.
Though no final decision has yet been taken, the tender may have to be scrapped. There is a rethink about going in for double-barrel rifles. Other options are already been considered.
One could be to get a foreign rifle company to shift some of its manufacturing facilities to India. Incidentally, foreign firms like Colt (US), Beretta (Italy), Sig Sauer (Europe), Ceska (Czech) and Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) participated in the trials for the double-barrel rifles.
Conversely, the OFB could produce the new assault rifles with foreign collaboration. Weighing around 3.5-kg, the new rifle will need to have advanced night-vision devices, holographic reflex sights, laser designators, detachable under-barrel grenade launchers and the like.
The Army has for long been keen to replace its 5.56mm indigenous INSAS (Indian small arms system) rifles that have suffered from technical bugs since their induction in 1994-95.
With an effective range of just 450-metre and weighing over 4.25-kg, INSAS rifles had replaced the even more cumbersome 7.62mm self-loading rifles. The Army also uses over one lakh AK-47s, known the world over for their sheer ruggedness and fail-safe nature, for counter-insurgency operations in J&K and northeast.
PIL in High Court on INSAS Rifles
The Delhi High Court, on 22 April, issued a notice to the home and the defence ministries on a Public Interest Litigation alleging that ‘defective’ INSAS rifles were being given to Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and other paramilitary forces.
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