New Delhi, May 18
Days after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India took the government to task over supply of defective equipment for armed forces, defence minister A.K. Antony today admitted that some of the hi-tech equipment purchased from abroad was defective. The armed forces spent as much as Rs 44,000 crore in the last year on purchases.

Inaugurating a two-day seminar of heads of the country's 39 ordnance factories, the minister said large portions of equipment imported from abroad were found to be defective and that supplies of equipment by foreign firms for many defense projects of vital strategic nature had also run into heavy time overruns, he said.

Without naming the weapon systems or the countries that supplied them, the minister said the government was trying to ensure that foreign suppliers of military gear compiled strictly with contractual obligations. “We will check this,” he said.

He was also of the opinion that procurements from abroad could not continue indefinitely and emphasised that in the long term, a country like India could not afford to spend heavily on weapon imports.

He also said the country's indigenous main battle tanks Arjun would undergo final user comparative trials next month, leading to their induction into the Army. The Arjun underwent baptism by fire during war games in the Thar Desert recently.

It is the topmost priority of his government to operationalise the Arjun tanks, the minister said. There were some defects, which have now been removed, he added.

While admitting that some more problems were there with the tanks, Antony said 14 Arjun Tanks would undergo comparative summer trials against Russia-supplied T-90 and upgraded T-72 in the Thar Desert next month, prior to their induction.

During the recent exercise ‘Ashwamedh’, Army had for the first time fielded Arjun Tanks in war manoeuvres.

The government has already cleared commercial production of 124 Arjun Tanks to equip two armoured regiments.

After their induction, we may consider proposals to manufacture more tanks, the defence minister said.