‘Army operationally prepared to meet any contingency’

Army Chief Gen V.K. Singh today said the force was operationally prepared to meet any contingency, days after he highlighted major “shortcomings” in the country’s defence preparedness.

On corruption in defence deals, he said it was important to ensure probity and transparency.

Speaking about defence preparedness of the country, the Army Chief said: “With great confidence, I can say that operationally we are prepared to take on any contingency that can arise.”

Gen Singh said defence preparedness was a large field that comprises training of troops, morale of the troops and the type of equipment and other things.

In a letter to the Prime Minister on March 12, Gen Singh had complained about lack of defence preparedness and ammunition. He had also pointed out the obsolescence of air defence systems in the force. Leakage of the letter in the media had triggered a controversy.

Maintaining that adequate measures were being taken to check corruption, he said: “Corruption has always been a major issue. We had people fighting against corruption for long time. Certain exposes have come up in recent times in various fields which included the defence sector also.”

“Our thrust area is to ensure transparency and probity and also to ensure that middlemen and dealers who indulge in wrong practices are checked,” he said.

He said it was also important that the defence forces were not saddled with sub-standard equipment.