NEW DELHI: India’s armed forces top brass are a happier lot since the Narendra Modi government took over and have been gushing over the “decisiveness” of the NDA government at meetings and during private conversations.
The latest to do so, that too publicly, was Army chief General Bikram Singh at a farewell tea hosted by Defence Minister Arun Jaitley last week.
At the get-together of all top officials from the ministry above the Joint Secretary rank and senior officials from the armed forces, Singh told in presence of Jaitley, that he was “very happy” with the quick decision-making capabilities of the Defence Minister and the government’s political leadership. “During the brief time-period in which I worked with the new government, I was impressed with the decisiveness that was shown,” he was quoted as saying at the farewell by Ministry officials.
Just days ahead of the farewell meeting, Singh’s Navy counterpart Admiral Rabindra Kumar Dhowan was “very impressed” with the manner in which Jaitley had conducted his first-ever Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) meeting, on a Saturday, when the government offices are usually closed.
The armed forces have a reason to rejoice. Not only did Jaitley, as Finance Minister, hike the defence capital budget by `5,000 crore for this fiscal to `94,588 crore, which was announced by the previous UPA government in February this year, he also set aside `1,000 crore from the hiked amount for creating rail networks along Pakistan and China border for quicker and easier movement of troops and their equipment.
Jaitley also hiked the allocation for ‘One Rank, One Pension’ for ex-servicemen by two times from Rs. 500 crore to Rs. 1,500 crore. The government also took less time to prune the list of items that are to be manufactured under the Defence Ministry’s license. The Modi government also quickly decided to hike the Foreign Direct Investment cap from the one-and-a-half-decade-old policy of 26 per cent to 49 per cent through Foreign Investment Promotion Board approval.
If these decisions came about in the budget, the NDA government surprised the armed forces, with the Environment Ministry under Prakash Javadekar announcing that a policy framework for speedier clearances to key border infrastructure and roads was being prepared. That would mean at least 80 key border roads of approximately 6,000 km along the China border would get the needed impetus.
On the issue of North East infrastructure, General Bikram Singh, within a month of the NDA government assuming power, had met General (Retired) V K Singh, who is the Minister of State for North East Development, to seek cooperation for the military projects.
Also, going by the advice of the Army, the government recently ruled out any changes in the policy on the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir at the first meeting of the Modi-headed Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).
On military acquisitions, the CCS also approved the budgetary allocation of Rs. 19,000 crore for completing the first indigenous aircraft carrier project— the 40,000-tonne INS Vikrant—at the Cochin Shipyard.
The first DAC meeting under Jaitley’s chairmanship cleared the Rs. 15,000-crore tendering process for 56-plane project to replace the ageing fleet of Air Force’s Avros transport aircraft.
This apart, the DAC in its meeting a week ago, also cleared procurement proposals worth Rs. 21,000 crore, including the supply of 32 HAL-built Advanced Light Helicopter ‘Dhruv’ to the Coast Guard and the Navy at a cost of Rs. 7,000 crore. The two maritime forces would get 16 Dhruvs each under the supply order.