Def Minister appoints panel to expedite capital acquisition

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has constituted a 13-member advisory committee to monitor and expedite capital acquisition projects for the modernisation of the armed forces.
The defence ministry said in a statement that under the terms of reference of the committee, it has to undertake an independent review and check the status of ongoing critical projects worth more than Rs 500 crore.
The committee would suggest measures to improve the capital acquisition process.
The ministry said the Raksha Mantri's Advisory Committee on Ministry of Defence (MoD) Capital Projects (RMCOMP) had been appointed to expedite capital acquisitions to bolster the preparedness of the armed forces.

The committee will be headed by Vinay Sheel Oberoi, former secretary in the government. It will have a tenure till the end of August 2018, it said.
The mandate of the panel includes identifying specific bottlenecks in implementing projects and suggesting remedial measures.

The implementation of projects worth thousands of crores of rupees is getting delayed because of a range of factors, severely affecting the modernisation of the forces.
The members of the panel include former chairman of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd R K Tyagi, former member of Ordnance Factories Board R K Jain, partner head of KPMG's aerospace and defence division Amber Dubey and special advisor of Ernst & Young LLP R Anand.

The ministry said the committee would have to present an initial status report on identified projects to the defence minister by March 31.
Its report would include, apart from the current status of the projects, remedial measures and follow-up strategy to remove bottlenecks.
Based on the decisions of the status report, it would have to submit two follow-up corrective Action Taken Reports by April 30 and July 31.
The panel will review various categories of projects including "Buy" (Indian) and "Buy and Make" (Indian).