Recently one such malicious Article was published in a leading English daily on August 11 by a Retd. Lt. Genl. of the Indian Army against the Ordnance Factories and its 80,000 dedicated and committed workforce. These authors have become “His Masters Voice” and for their Masters, Corporatisation of Ordnance Factory Board is the only agenda for their selfish interests.

• According to them everything about public is bad and private is good. Maintaining national capabilities, keeping a buffer or wartime reserve like OFB is not their botheration.
• They want the nation to be in cross-roads on war emergency, because there is no profit in that.
• The so called defence experts and pay roll experts are ready to forgo the nation’s interest to multiplication of their profit and business at the cost of national security.
• These People are on roll of Private Interest for whom business comes first and maintaining military capability comes last.
• These people do not learn from the history and want to influence the media through falsification.

The so called advocates of Privatisation has got only one agenda to sell that private is more efficient than public. But the global studies says otherwise. Many studies show the ownership of the company has got nothing to do with the efficiency of that company. There are many factors such as commitment, conviction, autonomy, regulation, innovation and institutional development which contribute to growth. Examples, Royal Ordnance Factories and UK Rail after its conversion to Private sector. To keep these two institutions running, the govt. was forced to subsidies public money. The authors of these Articles have quoted the three reasons announced by the Finance Minister to Corporatise the Ordnance Factories that will improve its autonomy, accountability and efficiency.

The three putative benefits on which MOD is marketing the Corporatisation of OFB are Autonomy, Accountability and Efficiency. As far as autonomy is concerned it has more to do with Ministry of Defence, which has to decentralize the powers to OFB with functional independence. Being a Government Department, OFB is accountable to the people of the country through Parliament. OFB is subjected to periodical review by the Hon'ble RM and by the Parliamentary Standing Committee and scrutiny by statutory agencies of Govt. of India, like CAG etc. OFB’s efficiency can be seen from the fact that it has got export orders through open bidding with the Private Sector pitted against it. Compared to any other Government Department, the workforce of the Ordnance Factories are more efficient and more than 60 per cent of the employees earn their wages only through their output/performance, since they are on a time tested piece work system.

The baseless allegation being made by, especially the Retired Army officers against Ordnance Factories is that the Ordnance Factory product are of poor quality, high cost, lack of accountability, inordinate delays and a very poor work culture. Can any of these critics qualify their statement by facts and figures. How can we allow these so called experts to go scot free without supporting documentary evidence on their allegations??

The issue of poor quality is incorrect, as is evident from system of early user exploitation introduced in 2013, wherein 1 per cent of each lot is subjected to firing in an attempt to identify manufacturing defects. The results of this system have demonstrated a success rate of 99.8 per cent, which is world class. The ability of the Ordnance Factory to produce world class ammunition is also established by placement of repeat export orders for Ammunition supplied under self certification.

The indication in the Articles against Ordnance Factories that they get away with substandard products as the Army is solely dependent on them for the supply of Ammunition is incorrect. The ammunition has to meet the quality assurance plans approved by the DGQA, an agency of Army, which are based on documents supplied by the Original Equipment Manufacturers. It is interesting to note that in early 90’s Army imported AK-47 Rifles and majority of the Rifles were un-usable due to Barrel Bent. Even today nobody knows what action was taken against those culprits in the Army.

Another allegation against the Ordnance Factories being made by these critics are that the Armed Forces have never been satisfied with the output of the OFB. For the Indian armed forces, 1971 was its pinnacle of glory. After a drubbing in 1962 and a small victory in 1965, the stupendous success in 1971 made the nation proud. The confidence within the forces was subsequently visible again in Kargil in 1999. Indian armed forces have since then never looked back.
 
There were no private sector players in Defence at that time? With what did they fight? Where there any accidents? Then how did they win? Why the author is not crediting the contribution of OFB and DPSUs? His silence on the same casts doubt on his rationality. It is pertinent to mention that the Army faced escalation of price by Private Sector during the 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars, especially in items like Cotton Uniform, woolen Dress and other general supply items to the Army. Hike the price during War time and supply low quality items during peace items is the business tactics of the Private Sector which the Army has experienced in the past. Army do not have any control for Input Inspection, process Inspection for Defence items supplied by the Private Sector. The so called L&T self Propelled Gun Vajra is not visible in Ladak.

OFB won accolades from the then Chief of Army Staff and the Parliamentary Standing Committee. OFB stretched its capacity in all the critical items as per the demand even to the extent of 200 per cent of Pre-Kargil supplies. In the foreword to “Arming the Indian Arsenal”, former COAS Gen VP Malik has stated, “Indian Ordnance Factories, which could produce ammunition and some equipment for which they had the necessary technology, rose to the occasion. But the government faced considerable problems in procuring items that had to be imported at short notice.” OFB’s supplies did not suffer the post- Pokhran-II sanctions and it contributed its mite during Operations Vijay in 1999 as well.

It is unfortunate that the retired Army officers are joining in the race to become unofficial spokesperson of those vested interest, so that they command a better market value in post retirement life. The politically motivated comments after they have hang their Uniforms shows that these people have misplaced interpretation, factual ignorance or shenanigans of private interest and forcing their views on media for their tag on their name. All profit oriented Defence items will go to private suppliers in the name of indigenization and loss oriented defence items will remain with Govt. suppliers in the name of Security.

This is why the employees of Ordnance Factories and their Unions are opposing Corporatisation and Privatisation. People of India including the employees of Ordnance Factory have great regard for our Armed Forces and service officers, as they amplify the trait “Service above self”, but the thing that glorify these few service officers in their service career by reaming apolitical as they are forced to do the same as per the Army Rules 1954 and as per the Army Act, is suddenly vanishing.

It is important to inform the public about the truth in the matter, so that they know the true nature of these retired Generals who are attempting tarnish the image of Ordnance Factories and its workforce. (IPA Service)