Artillery programme delayed by two decades, says CAG report

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, March 27

Coming down heavily on the slow-paced artillery gun modernisation programme for the Army, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said as of March 2022, only 8 per cent of the guns initially envisaged had been delivered to the Army.

The Army’s artillery modernisation plan was drawn up in 1999. The Field Artillery Rationalisation Plan talked about acquiring 2,800 guns by 2027.

“The replacement of the existing artillery guns with the state-of-the-art guns has been progressing at a slow pace for over the last two decades,” the CAG said in a report. Of the six proposals for the acquisition and upgrade of artillery guns, only three turned into contracts, making way for only 17 per cent of the guns planned for acquisition. The acquisition process was hit by delays at various stages.

The delays underscore the need for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Army Headquarters to ensure that ‘qualitative requirements’ (the parameters) were realistic, said the report. The artillery guns of the Army comprise various types of systems inducted since 1965. The acquisition of self-propelled guns was dropped from the modernisation plan without identifying a suitable substitute.

Two major proposals for the procurement of towed guns and a numbers of mounted gun systems, comprising 77 per cent of the total proposed acquisitions, could not fructify till March 2022, despite having undergone various stages of procurement.