Facing shortage of criticalweapon systems and ammunition, Army Chief General Bikram Singhwill brief Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the "hollowness"faced by the 1.3 million-strong force in its defencepreparedness.
Gen Bikram Singh will make a presentation before thePrime Minister about the "hollowness" faced by the force andthe steps needed to do away with them in the next few weeks,Government sources told PTI here.
The Army is in the process of identifying more areaswhere it is facing shortfalls and they will be added in thepresentation before the PM, they said.
The Directorate General of Military Operations has askedthe Army Headquarters to coordinate with all the arms andservices to prepare the list of all equipment and platformswhich are short in inventory and would be required by theforce to maintain its operational preparedness, sources said.
During the recent Commanders' Conference also, the ArmyChief had said "hollowness" in the country's defencepreparedness will be addressed by pushing for a new directionin modernisation.
"There was a need to address hollowness in defencepreparedness and undertake modernisation with added vigour,"he had said.
Gen Bikram Singh's predecessor Gen V K Singh hadhighlighted the critical shortage of arms and ammunition facedby the various arms and services of the force in a secretletter written to the Prime Minister.
In his letter, the former Army Chief had said that there was only three to four days of ammunition left with the tankregiments especially the ones operating the Russian-originT-90 tanks.
He had also highlighted the 98 per cent obsolescencefaced by the Army Air Defence, which is in-charge of securingthe country's frontiers from incoming enemy fighter planes andother manned and unmanned aircraft.
Even before the Army Chief wrote the letter to the PrimeMinister, the Defence Ministry had started taking steps to doaway with the shortages faced by the ground fighting force andinitiated talks with several foreign vendors to get therequired equipment.
In recent times, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) ofthe Ministry has cleared several proposals of the Army toprocure equipment for its air defence units includingacquisition of 12 regiments of Quick Reaction Surface-to-Airmissiles squadrons.
The Cabinet Committee on Security has also cleared thedeals with Russia for buying 25,000 Invar missiles at a costof Rs 4,000 crore for the T-90 tanks and 10,000 Konkurs-Mmissiles for the Infantry and Mechanised Infantry battalionsto enhance their capabilities to take down enemy tankregiments.
Defence Minister A K Antony has also pledged full supportto the Army in meeting its all operational requirementswithout letting them to be affected by the economic slowdown.