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| Parliamentary panel pulls up Defence Ministry | | |
BL KAK
NEW DELHI, May 9
India's vital establishment, Ministry of Defence, has come in for severe criticism by Parliament's standing committee on Defence for ignoring the suggestion for setting up of a high-level empowered committee for restructuring of Armed Forces in order to have optimum use of limited resources and to suggest trimming the force size with corresponding increase in the use of sophisticated technology.
Parliamentary panel has also pulled up the Defence Ministry for having left unanswered the recommendation of the standing committee to examine the relevance of involvement of the defence forces in non-defence activities. In spite of the committee's repeated recommendations, the issue relating to the selection of a suitable location for establishi8ng the Indian National Defence University (INDU) is still under consideration of the government. Hence, the parliamentary panel wants the Ministry of Defence to explore the possibility of setting up of INDU in a remore area.
The standing committee's report just tabled in Parliament highlights the need to create a separate specialised force to handle various internal security operations including terrorism instead of deploying the defence forces for this purpose. The comittee is for 'federal police' consiting of State police force and Central police force and intelligence agencies with full coordination with each other in order to handle law and order situation in the country. This, the comittee has opined, will also facilitate the Armed Forces to concentrate on their prime objective--that is, to safeguard the country's borders.
The Defence Ministry is reported to have told the parliamentary panel: MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) is responsible for internal security maters such as maintenace of law and order, tackling insurgency and militancy in the country. The State police organisations along with Central paramilitary forces are deployed in handling such situations in the States. When the magnitude of these problems is perceived to be beyond the capabilities of the police forces, services of defence forces are requisitioned in aid to civl authorities. When required, the defence forces also extend asistance to the affected States by way of providing training to paramilitary forces and State police personnel as also in setting up training facilities.
In a pointed reference to the shortage being faced by the Navy of both short range and long range maritime surveillance aircraft, the parliamentary panel laments that there is also shortage of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and Dornier aircraft being used by the Navy for coastal surveillance. The panel has noted: "It negates the very proposition of the Defence Ministry that Navy has got adequate forces to meet any emergent requirement to safeguard maritime interests".
The Navy is planning to increase its maritime surveillance aircraft capability in its long term integrated perspective plan (LTIPP). The standing committee has taken exception to what it has termed as "inordinate delay" in the finalisation of LTIPP. The 1th plan is also pending for the final approval of the Ministry of Finance. The committee's report warns that the inordinate delay in enhancement of the short range surveillance capability and finalisation of LTIPP will seriously afect India's naval security in terms of surveillance.
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