Ordnance factories unable to meet army’s ammunition demand: CAG

New Delhi: The ordnance factories, which supply around 80 percent of its total production items to Indian Army, are unable to meet significant quantity of army’s demand for some principal ammunition thus adversely affecting their operational preparedness, exposes Comptroller And Auditor General (CAG) in its report on (Defence Services) Ordnance Factories presented in the Parliament on Friday.

The reports also point that factories achieved the production targets for only 49 per cent of items. It also highlights that the exports by ordinance factories have decreased by 39 per cent in 2017-18 over 2016-17.

The report clearly states, “A significant quantity of army’s demand for some principal ammunition items remained outstanding as on March 31, 2018, thus adversely affecting their operational preparedness.”

This report contains the results of audit of financial transactions of Ordnance Factories Organisation, under the Department of Defence Production of the Ministry of Defence.

The Ordnance Factories Board received budgetary grant of Rs 14,793 crore and Rs 804 crore in 2017-18 for its revenue expenditure and capital expenditure, respectively.

In 2017-18, it supplied materials of Rs 14,251 crore to its different indentors.

The reports also points the production capacity for empty and filled fuzes, an essential and critical part of an ammunition to provide safe and reliable detonation at the desired time and place, was not adequate to meet army’s requirement of ammunition.

Filling factories fill empty fuzes with explosives and assemble it with other components to form complete ammunition. Due to non-availability of spare fuzes, Army had stock of ammunition's worth Rs 403.27 crore lying in unusable condition, the report stated. It also stated that inadequate quality checks both by the factories and quality assurance agencies in manufacturing led to significant quantum of return and rejection of empty fuzes and filled fuzes. Further the ordinance factories could not fulfill the army’s requirement of electronic fuzes due to lack of infrastructure and capability. (IANS)

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