With India emerging as a major buyer of military hardware in the global market, defence minister A K Antony on Wednesday has told the top commanders of the three services that “transparency and fairness” should be the buzzwords in defence procurements.

At the combined commander’s conference, the minister hinted at further refining the one-year old defence procurement procedure and institutionalising the defence planning process for speedy and quick arms acquisition, which continues to be a very sensitive area due to controversies like Kargil coffin scam and the dubious Denel deal.

He said significant financial powers had been devolved to services headquarters and it must be ensured that these powers are “put to best use”.

The minister’s remarks came in the wake of reports of delay in armament procurement due to slow decision making in the armed forces. The malaise is the worst in the army which has not been able to fully spend its allocated funds for arms purchases in the last two budgets.

Break from tradition
In another major development, the defence ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office has decided not to make Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s inaugural speech giving rise to speculation that he may have conveyed something “sensational” to the top commanders of the army, air force and navy. This is a break from the tradition.

Officials from the defence ministry and PMO refused to clarify why this break in the tradition took place and whether Singh had stated something sensational.

Till the time of filing the report, the Prime Minister’s speech has not been made public.
They only said that the prime minister called for an integrated approach and institutional changes for allowing the practical implementation of the strategic and long term national policies which have to be enmeshed with military capabilities.

Change in mindset
The defence minister has called for a change in mindsets as the country was in the process of accelerating the pace of modernisation of the armed forces by inducting hi-tech weapons systems. “Technology has compressed distances and times,” he said.