Why in exercise like these we see very inferior gear? Does it is because limited numbers of equipment hence everyone is unable to get equipments?
Exactly if you see carefully our jawans posted in Kashmir most of the time tend to have bulletproof vests and helmets if you look at our troops near the border you will not only see bulletproof vests but also new helmets including the Wendy ones and some even have comm systems and nvg's.
Even in the weapons department you will notice more and more FAB modified AK's and tonbo sights being used.
This is on large part due to the emergency purchases and some reforms that have taken place since the last term.
But the sad thing is that most of these emergency purchases and reforms were never in bulk but rather small quantities for the troops based in and around the Kashmir and Pakistan border region.
If you go a bit back you will find pictures of our troops placed on the Chinese side during an exercise.
You will find that they have even worse gear than the troops above old Insas rifle with extremely old helmets and no bulletproof jackets.
This all because it is a peaceful area.
What you are seeing is the misplaced priorities of the army here. The purchases that took place for our jawans in Kashmir was because long time back under Congress rule the condition was so bad that we used the rifles of dead terrorists can you imagine that.
So when the BJP government came in power they decided to change things by hook and crook and the result of that can be seen but even they can do so much.
If say in a month we have a war with China what reason will the army give for the poor gear our jawans has god knows.
Those 460 tanks they are buying from Russia had they rather used that money for our infantry we could have seen something along the lines of western gear in the service.
It's just misplaced priorities and corruption in the army that you see this condition.
Government did what it could for the army in JK rest they get the money they decide.
Take NSG CRPF and NAGALAND police for example take their gear into consideration all of them are at least 5-7 years ahead of the army and in the case of NSG a full 10.
Yes the roles are totally different I agree but looking at their gear and improvements and looking at their own fields how much one has advanced you'll see the difference.
Why Mizoram police seem to have AWP as their snipers while our army still uses drunagnov NSG has got the SIG dmr and psg1.
They finally started getting new snipers this was again a limited emergency purchase to counter Pakistani snipers who had better gear before.
Finally they pass a tender for a bulk order and guess what the cut it because lack of funds.
All I can say is wow instead of trying to buy everything at the same time make a plan these things for this year and so on but no they will do nothing like that.
Nagaland police gear looks great it just shows money is not the problem the way you spend it is.
And God knows what happened to those sniper rifles from that private company they are totally out of the news now after the initial pomp I do hope they get some orders.