The “new process” cleared by the Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC), which was chaired by defence minister Rajnath Singh and attended by the three Service chiefs and defence secretary, entails “capital acquisitions” from domestic sources on a fast-track basis, sources told TOI.
“The entire acquisition process has to be completed within six months under this process. The upper limit for each contract is Rs 300 crore. The new process will cut down delays and help the armed forces plug operational deficiencies swiftly,” a source added. The MoD, however, refused to say anything on the outcome of the DAC meeting.
The government had first delegated capital and revenue financial powers for a specified time to the Army, Navy and IAF for “emergency and critical contracts” to build ammunition stocks and spares in the aftermath of the Uri terror attack in September 2016, which had led to heightened tensions with Pakistan.
The emergency powers were once again delegated to the armed forces after the multiple Chinese intrusions into eastern Ladakh in May 2020. Under a few extensions to those financial powers, the armed forces had then gone in for a large number of emergency procurements of weapons, supplies and spares from countries like Russia, Israel and France as well as from domestic sources.
These acquisitions ranged from the French `Hammer’ air-to-ground precision-guided munitions for the new Rafale fighter jets, which are designed to destroy bunkers and hardened shelters at a range of 20 to 70-km, to Israeli `Heron’ mark-2 unmanned aerial vehicles and `Spike’ anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs).
The Army alone had inked 71 capital procurement contracts (worth Rs 6,918 crore) and 113 revenue procurement deals (Rs 9,000 crore) under those emergency powers.