This comes in the wake of a Court of Inquiry report and subsequent decisions taken at the level of the defence minister Manohar Parrikar's office.
The government has said that the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), that makes ammunition for the security forces, will replace or repair the defective ammunition stored in depots across the country within three months.
This comes in the wake of a Court of Inquiry report and subsequent decisions taken at the level of the defence minister Manohar Parrikar's office.
The process will be undertaken by Army Headquarters (AHQ) here and will involve disposal of all defective segregated mines, held at various locations across the country.
The new directives entail AHQ, in consultation with all stakeholders will finalise the standard operating procedures (SOPs') for disposal of defective ammunition in fixed time frame, and fixing up responsibility for defect, besides regularisation of loss.
Further, the AHQ will review the security and surveillance and fire safety arrangements at all ammunition depots.
The army has cited leaking TNT from the anti-tank mines as the cause of the massive fire at the CAD, India's largest explosives depot spread in more than 700 acres and located 115 KM from Nagpur. TNT is an explosive material used in mines.
In a report submitted to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) earlier, Army underlined that defective anti-tank mines were stored at the CAD shed which was completely reduced to ashes in the incident - for nine years and were waiting to be attended by the OFB. 130 tonnes of anti-tank mines were destroyed in the incident. CAD stores a variety of ammunition including that of AK-47s and Brahmos Missiles in total 299 storage sheds.
CAG report
According to a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report last year, as on March 31 2013, 31, 2013, 13 kinds of ammunition worth Rs1,617.94 crore were lying rejected across 856 lots due to manufacturing defects. This included 102,805 anti-tank mines worth Rs 47.29 crores that were found to be defective across various ammunition depots in the country
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