Manohar Parrikar to hold meeting of defence top brass

NEW DELHI: To fast track the acquisition and up gradation process in the armed forces, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will hold a series of meetings with top brass of the three Services and his ministry here from tomorrow.

Parrikar, who took over the reigns last week, had held the first round of meeting in which he had directed the Army, the Navy and the Air Force to prioritise their demands.

The Defence Minister had made it clear that the acquisition process under him would not only be transparent, but also fast.

There was a perception that the defence acquisition under the previous UPA government was slow. Many of the critical projects initiated under the previous regime were still in negotiation stages.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who was holding the additional charge of defence, had undertaken a series of swift decisions and cleared projects and purchases worth about Rs 1.2 lakh crore.

Defence Ministry sources said key projects would come up in the agenda of the meeting of Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), to be held later this month.

Though date for the DAC meeting is yet to be finalised, this would be the first DAC that Parrikar would be chairing.

The DAC was set up in 2001 as part of the post-Kargil reforms in defence sector.

The council approves the long-term integrated perspective plan for the forces, accords acceptance of necessity (AON) to begin acquisition proposals, and has to grant its approval to all major deals through all their important phases.

It also has the power to approve any deviations in an acquisition, and recommends all big purchases for approval of the Cabinet committee on security.