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Does prove that Gen VK Singh was not talking through his hat.Antony dusts VK blueprint
SUJAN DUTTA
New Delhi, July 2: Defence minister A.K. Antony today asked the army to restructure its organisation to raise more forces particularly for the China border and procure hardware within a two-year deadline.
Antony was practically dusting off a mothballed "transformation" proposal by the former army chief at the first meeting with the new army chief, General Bikram Singh, on a two-year modernisation programme for the army.
"The defence minister asked the army to prioritise and focus on critical areas and suggested systemic and organisational changes to achieve the desired result in a short time-span," a defence ministry official said after the meeting.
Gen. Bikram Singh and his team including the vice-chief, Lt Gen. S.K. Singh, gave a presentation to the defence ministry on the modernisation programme. Although this was Gen. Bikram Singh's first such meeting, it is the third in a series after the leak of former army chief, Gen. V.K. Singh's letter to the Prime Minister on critical shortages in the arsenal.
In his "transformation proposals", sent after a two-year study to the ministry, the former army chief had suggested streamlining of the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME), the Army Service Corps (ASC) and the Army Ordnance Corps (AOC) under a single "logistics branch".
He had also proposed raising two mountain strike corps (of about 30,000 troops each) specifically for the Northeast and the border with China. The finance ministry had pointed to a cash crunch to shoot down the proposal for two corps. But the army has begun raising two divisions for a corps in the Northeast.
Antony told the new army chief and his team that "force accretion" should continue apace. The "force accretion" would involve deployment of more troop and cargo-carrying aircraft (airlifters), acquisition and deployment of "combat air assets", chiefly ground-attack helicopters, modern ammunition dumps and acquisition and deployment of pilotless aircraft in the eastern command's area of responsibility.
Last fortnight, the new army chief, Gen. Bikram Singh had asked the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) to accelerate the building and widening of strategic routes to and from the frontier with China. He was reviewing the work on 20 strategic roads in the Northeast including 10 in Arunachal and 12 in Ladakh.
Defence ministry sources said that Monday's review meeting flagged six priority areas for the army:
"¢ Enhancement of airlift capability
"¢ Improvement in storage of ammunition stocks
"¢ Acquisition and deployment of ground-attack helicopters. (in addition to the possible acquisition of 22 Boeing-made Apache helicopters the army is set to order more than a 100 Light Combat Helicopters)
"¢ Speeding up artillery acquisition — the slowest procurement of hardware because the army has not got a heavy gun since the Bofors 26 years back. The army is now set to buy the US-made M777 ultra light howitzers that can be underslung from helicopters and deployed in the mountains.
"¢ Improved night vision devices, and
"¢ Acquisition of pilotless aircraft and new surveillance equipment.
Gen. Bikram Singh was accompanied to the meeting by, among others, the director-general of military operations (DGMO) and the master general ordnance.
Antony dusts VK blueprint
One has to see if it is to open the floodgates to kickback amongst the interested parties all around the deck!