The ministry is set to start working at full strength from Monday, with all officials told to report to office, taking adequate precautions like wearing of masks and maintaining social distancing. Defence ministry is pushing back deadlines for capital acquisitions to June and will be looking at alternate ways of communicating with vendors, like video conferencing

by Manu Pubby

New Delhi: With the COVID-19 threat slowing down industry throughout the world, the defence ministry is pushing back deadlines for capital acquisitions to June and will be looking at alternate ways of communicating with vendors, like video conferencing.

The ministry is set to start working at full strength from Monday, with all officials told to report to office, taking adequate precautions like wearing of masks and maintaining social distancing.

The decision to push back deadlines like responses to tenders and request for information was taken after feedback and representations from the industry, which has been uneasy that defence manufacturing was not listed as an essential service during the lockdown period. A set of instructions to departments also says that pre-bid meetings should be avoided and methods like phone or video conferencing should be adopted. “In view of continuing extraordinary circumstances related to the Covid-19 epidemic, it has been decided by competent authority to further extend dates for submission of responses to RFP/RFI/EOI due in March and April to June 1,” the communication reads.


Similarly, the ministry has extended the deadline for suggestions and comments on the draft defence procurement policy that was earlier scheduled for this month. The extension will give industry and experts time till May 8 to send in suggestions. The new policy emphasises on promoting Indian companies and has a new option for armed forces to lease equipment like helicopters and transport aircraft.

While senior officials did attend office during the lockdown, all departments of the ministry, including the financial wing, are expected to start work at full strength from Monday. Defence secretary Ajay Kumar has told ET that periodic meetings and video conferencing has been on to resolve issues and the priority had been COVID-related activities. “Apart from COVID-19 related activities, lot of other urgent and important work has been going on. ‘Work-from-home’ has been put to full use. Even those officers who were late adopters of technology are now increasingly coming onboard using greater technology in their work. This is an important spin off of this lockdown,” the top bureaucrat said.

As the ministry gets back to full strength next week, a top priority will be to make up time lost on ongoing projects and to get the industry back on track.