Slow acquisition hinders defence upgrade: Army chief

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 21

Indian Army Chief Gen MM Naravane today questioned the slow pace of acquiring new weapons and military platforms terming red-tapism as a “vicious cycle”.

Ripping apart the prevailing bureaucratic system in India acquisition processes, he said, “Self-reliant is a strategic necessity, but to achieve it a revolution is needed in bureaucratic affairs.”

Gen Naravane said this while speaking at the occasion of 25 years of Army-industry partnership at a virtual conference.

Talking about the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP), 2020, he said it had been aligned to empower the domestic industry.

“While all these initiatives are quite appreciable, there is a lot of work that still needs to be done,” he added.

“There are certain inherent procedural lacunae that have crept into the acquisition process which primarily arise due to the overbearing nature of our rules, regulations and guidelines in trying to ensure zero error,” Gen Naravane said, adding, “This is also aggravated by our own interpretation of rules. This results in every acquisition process being tied up in knots.”

The process and procedures, rather than product, become paramount and these were holding hostage defence modernisation, he said.