No safety gear, Army halts demining

An MoD spokesman confirmed that the de-mining operations were suspended on account of safety but declined to comment on the duration of the suspension.

Topping the list sent to MoD were special blast-resistant boots which are critical during these operations. In the absence of these boots, the Pune-based Southern Command ordered improvised boots from the Desert Corps in Jodhpur.

Desperate for the safety equipment, senior officials from the Chandimandir based-Western Command requested Southern Command to send them details for similar boots for operations in their sector. In fact, Western Command had borne the brunt of the casualties with the highest being reported from the Punjab sector, said sources.

The Army’s problems were compounded by the fact that they were using vintage mines. They were using the ND-Mark-II and Mark-V mines which date back to the 1940s and 1950s, respectively.

The fuses would cause sympathetic detonation resulting in a large number of casualties. A high-level delegation paid a visit to the Ammunition Factory, Khadki, Pune last year to determine the cause of these accidents and zeroed in on the fuses.

Worried at mounting casualties, the Army started ‘‘re-training’’ their troops. However, the lack of safety equipment throughout Operation Parakram kept hampering operations till it was finally forced to suspend them early this year.

The Army had undertaken one of the biggest mining operations all along the Rajasthan, Punjab and Jammu borders as well as the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

According to South Block sources, despite the existence of a Defence Acquisition Board, headed by a Special Secretary, the file for acquisition of key de-mining equipment was kept pending. Ironically, the Board was created after the Kargil war to speed up defence acquisitions.

Defence minister George Fernandes has said it on record that the acquisition process needs to be restructured to speed up purchases for the armed forces.

It is learnt that only after the suspension of operations by the Army, a price negotiation committee, headed by a Joint Secretary, was set up to begin the process of acquiring the safety equipment. Senior Army officials say that this could also take a long time, delaying the induction of the equipment by another year.