Recent reports about the procurement of 1.86 lacs Bullet Proof Jackets (BPJs) currently underway through the capital route cleared by Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) in 2009 on the verge of being scrapped is bad news indeed[i]. Not only will this event bring the entire effort commenced in this direction over a decade ago to a complete naught, it has also brought to fore yet again the fact, that acquisition and deployment of any new capability takes around a decade provided there are no retenders for any reason.

In the instant case, the reason for scrapping the said procurement is the reported failure of all six vendors to meet the parameters given in the General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQR) laid down by the Army Headquarters(HQ). There is also no disputing the fact that this critical component of the personal equipment of the soldier battling in the counter insurgency grid and is urgently required by the Army as the existing stock is fast nearing the end of its shelf life and part procurements through revenue route are being resorted to make good the shortfall.

Acceptance of Necessicity (AoN) for this case was accorded by the DAC in October 2009 and it was expected that these BPJs would be acquired and deployed by 2012. The Request for Proposal (RFP) was however retracted due to GSQR related issues in December 2011 after a gap of more than two years from AoN[ii]. Resolution of these issues took one year,and a fresh RFP was issued in December 2012. The trials for this item reportedly commenced somewhere in the end of 2014 and thereafter it has taken a substantial interval for the trials to conclude that the item is not meeting all the parameters laid down in the GSQR.

Since the GSQR and field evaluation trials are the exclusive domains of the Services this case also highlights the disruptions that take place at the level of the Service Head Quarters (SHQ) and dispel the popular refrain that all delays are attributable to the civilian bureaucracy in the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Whatever is the reason for rejection of the BPJs at field trial stage in the instant case, the fact remains that this delay should not be acceptable to the Army especially when the item in question is an important life saving resource such as the BPJ.

The experts committee[iii] on revision of Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2013 has suggested a number of measures to make the GSQR and field evaluation trials more responsive to the need of the users. Certain measures suggested are, firstly, ignoring the minor technical parameters as long as the operational parameters are being met, secondly, powersbe given to carry out minor amendments to GSQRs even after the issue of RFP.The final recommendations made by the committee however do not dramatically alter the provisions wrt to GSQRs and field trials. Hence it is felt that year after year and case after case, acquisition of critical equipment will meet the same fate unless the structures governing acquisitions are addressed through application of “Systems Approach” to acquisition going beyond the DPP. As opposed to the conventional approach, most modern Armies world over are following the systems approach which rather than only refining the processes and procedures, addresses the structures which control these processes, hence the nature of change implemented through systems approach is more effective and permanent. Indian defence establishment needs to take cogent measures in this direction.

Certain immediate measures in this regard are that firstly, there is an urgent need to establish a Capability Development Group (CDG) which will convert the intent of the government into a capability that can be physically acquired to meet a given national security objective. The CDG would develop relevant information for entry of an acquisition project into the Defence Capability Plan (DCP) and focus on achieving more disciplined cost, schedule and risk information for the said project. The CDG would alsocomprise of an SQR Development Group with an industry interface which will generate SQRs based on approved capability plans. This will address the lacuna in the system and aid in improving the process of development of SQR.The CDG will in effect be responsible for providing the guarantee to the government that the desired capability is available in the world market and can be acquired within the desired time and cost parameters. In the case of the procurement of BPJ, failure of the equipment to meet the GSQR parameters at trial evaluation stage for any reason whatsoever was a very foreseeable risk which would have sprung out even if a rudimentary risk assessment exercise had been carried out moreso after the RFP was already withdrawn once. Hence, as a procedural imperative, a risk assessment and risk management exercise of the whole contract from beginning to end should have been carried out at the time of approval of the case by the DAC itself.This proposed CDG would be responsible for carrying out any such risk assessment and management of the entire contract. The latest expert committee on revision of DPP[iv] does mention institution of risk management mechanism in acquisition albeit through a pre audit of the entire contract through Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) which is a welcome step.

Secondly, the case of failed procurement of BPJs also underscores the importance of a separate programme management vertical within the existing acquisition setup which would have taken ownership of this case from its inception to the post contract management stage and also ensured its sustenance through the revenue route at a later stage. Providing programme traceability to the overall military strategy for each programme is typically achieved by adopting the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) system. Programme management through the PPBE serves to integrate strategy, programme, financial planning and execution. The planning phase of PPBE begins with the articulation of resource informed national defence policies and military strategy by the strategic leadership through the Strategic Defence Planning Guidance (SDPG). This articulation is an essential part of the defence acquisition process and is the root document for the acquisition process. After the planning phase, the programming phase begins with each- thearmed force, defence manufacturing unit and defence research agency writing a document usually named the Programme Objective Memorandum (POM) for each proposed programme that meets the strategic objective. The POM when complete will provide in detail the proposed budget for a typical period of five year. This document must also describe the risk associated with each project at every stage for review by the strategic leadership. Various metrics for success of the programme through its effective monitoring and control are also developed during this phase. Marginal budget adjustment and potential strategic alternatives can then be chosen by the leadership to integrate POMs from various agencies into an overall coherent defence programme. This document will provide the overall plan of action for a five-year period detailing all aspects of manpower, functioning, funding for this period. Budgeting phase is concurrent with the programming phase. Each service, manufacturing unit and defence research agency submits its budget estimate with its POM. The Integrated Defence Staff then converts their programme budgets into a demand for grant along with justification. Typically the budget forecasts only the next two years, but with more detail than the POM. These suggestions are reviewed by analysis typically byMoD(Finance), CAG etc to ensure that programme funding matches current policy, that they are priced right, and justified well to Parliament. The DPP-2015 if reworked with the removal of the AoN which becomes redundant with PPBE would become an ideal document that describes the execution phase.  The execution phase will start with the request for proposal and end with the successful completion of the entry into service phase of the capability. The primary objective of this phase is to ensure that the desired capability is delivered to the approved programme cost and timelines. The phase is punctuated by constant reviews wherein the metrics developed through the programming phase help measure actual output versus expected performance. If the programme misses its metrics, then the execution review may lead to recommendations to adjust the budget or programmes so that it meets the desired outcomes. Functional metrics are those that are monitored during the execution of the project. These are the kind of metrics that project, programme and portfolio managers report to a project management vertical within an organisation. The time over runs for example can be gauged by measuring the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) i.e. Earned Value(EV)plus Planned Value, similarly, the cost performance index can be measured by adding EV plus AC (actual cost) while the resources can be measured by comparing the actual resource utilisation vis-a`-vis planned utilisation.

There are a number of similar instances where acquisition of critically required equipment have been delayed such as a recent case of assault rifle for the Army where world renowned manufacturers such as Colt (USA), Beretta (Italy), Sig Sauer (Europe), Ceska (Czech) and Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) participated[v] and failed in the trials for the double-barrelrifles. It should indeed raise some pertinent questions as to why these world class manufacturers with decades of manufacturing excellence behind them wereunable to meet the GSQR parameters laid down by Indian Army. If an exercise was to be carried out in order to fix the exact responsibility for procurement delay on any functionary or department within the SHQ or MoD,it would not be possible to achieve the same. This is because the DPP functions as a system of committees and hence it is very difficult to pinpoint accountability to any single functionary or department for the delay in terms of time and cost over runs and the opportunity costs of capital acquisition contracts. Such instances are common place in the Indian capital acquisition system and if a “systems approach” is not adopted, critical acquisitions will continue to remain delayed and capital budgets will be surrendered year after year due to the inability of the system to deliver.