Deficiencies in Ammunition Management - CAG Report 2015

Jun 15, 2016 

Deficiencies in Ammunition Management - CAG Report 2015

While the CAD (Central Ammunition Depot) Pulgaon incident of fire on 31 May which led to the loss of 16 lives and tonnes of ammunition which was due for repair may lead to better management of repairable ammunition in the future and other deficiencies that are revealed in the Inquiry, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India Report on Ammunition Management in Army for year ended 2013 No. PA 19 of 2015 (Referred to hereafter as CAG Report 2015) CAG Report 2015 has outlined some of the major grey areas in ammunition management which need to be considered for holistic management of ammunition in the armed forces. These are as follows:-

Shortage of ammunition - CAG Report 2015 reveals that of the War Wastage Reserve scales of 40 (I) days, based on which Annual Provisioning of ammunition was carried out by DGOS, indent for procurement of ammunition by AHQ was placed on the basis of ‘Bottom Line’ or ‘Minimum Acceptable Risk Level’ (MARL) requirements which averaged to 20 (I) days due to budgetary constraints, and inadequate production capacity with OFB. Stocking at MARL was also not ensured with availability of ammunition in March 2013 below the MARL in respect of 125 out of a total of 170 types of ammunition (74 per cent). In com cases critical ammunition was available for less than 10 days (I). Clearly this situation cannot be accepted.

Non fructification of procurement orders placed on OFB – While a five year Roll on Indent on OFB was placed by the Indian Army after discussion with various agencies including the OFB, projections of funds for the Ordnance Factories was below the targets fixed thus the required ammunition could not be supplied to the Army.

Delay in finalization of imports – Procurement of imports through the capital and revenue routes continued to be slow as, “no procurement of ammunition took place against the nine items initiated for procurement through capital route during the period 2008-2013 due to single vendor situation, complexities in TOT, delay in finalization of GSQR, etc”. In the case of revenue procurements these were as low as 20 percent.

Deficiencies in Quality Control and Quality Assurance Systems- The main challenge here is the inadequate checks in quality by the Ordnance Factories, which include, “check of input material, inter-stage and final product”. Poor quality control at the initial stage only adds to the cycle of unserviceable ammunition, segregation and accidents where speedy disposal is not obtained as in the CAD Pulgaon case.

Inadequacies in supply chain management and depot activities - CAG Report 2015 highlights the inadequacies in movement of ammunition to include delays, non accounting, and transportation of explosives in non specified vans and so on.