Defence ministry set for a paradigm shift

The two major initiatives taken by the defence ministry during the last government have been put on the back burner in the first 100 days of a new government.

The non-lapsable roll-ing fund of Rs 25,000 crore was the first casualty, as at one of his first interaction with reporters, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said his view was that the utility of such funds was questionable.

The previous government had set up the corpus to address the problem of non-use of defence funds on the one hand and the long gestation period peculiar to defence deals on the other hand.

Because it always took a long time to close a defence deal, at the end of the year, it was not always easy to find the money to finance it. The idea of the fund was to have a ready corpus that could pay for deal as and when they were closed.

However, the fund found no mention in the Budget and Mukherjee explained that "It was just an intention but no money was allocated and therefore no fund was created. So it was just an expression of intention in the Budget speech of the then finance minister, but neither a head was created nor a penny was deposited there. So no question of my reversing this."

The other project that was rolled back was the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff. This was envisaged as the office that would help integrate the defence service - both in terms of operations as well as in the purchase of equipment so that the Army, Navy and Air Force would see a degree of synergy in functioning.

The project has been opposed vociferously by the Air Force, which fears its substantial expenditure on hardware and the technical expertise needed to evaluate it, could get blunted. During the tenure of the last government, the matter was left to be decided by consensus by an all-party meeting.

That meeting never took place. But Mukherjee indicated the new government's priorities when he said: "I have not yet decided on this issue. I have an open mind. As and when I come to a decision, it will be a public decision, a known decision . It may take a year. I have not said my decision will be for (the) creation of a Chief of Defence Staff. It may go either way."

Given Mukherjee's extensive finance background and considering his administrative acumen, it appears the defence ministry is set for a paradigm shift away from visits to Siachen and towards a more scientific reorganisation of the ministry.

But the one foot that Mukherjee appears to have set wrong is the promotion of senior officer on the basis of a recommendation from top leaders of the Congress, against the advice of the Chief of Army Staff, Gen NC Vij, and indeed, in his absence. This issue is currently in court and is likely to build up into an avoidable controversy.