(Nitin Gokhale is a well-known defence and strategic affairs analyst, author and media trainer.)
India's Mountain Strike Corps, announced with much fanfare in late 2013 to augment the army's strength along the border with China, is in trouble, thanks to a 'sanction' that was not really a sanction under the UPA II government.
According to sequence of events pieced together by this writer after talking to sources in the know, the Manmohan Singh government sanctioned the raising of new Corps -40,000 soldiers- meant as a deterrent against China along the northern frontier without catering for its funding.
The intrusion crisis was resolved after hectic diplomacy but the political leadership, under pressure of hostile public opinion, sought a remedy from the Army.
According to the proposal, the new Corps would have 40,000 troops and would cost more than Rs 64,000 crores to be spent over a seven or eight year period. It was expected that the new Corps would augment India's defence along the LAC stretching from Arunachal Pradesh in the east to Ladakh in northwest.
In an inexplicable move, the CCS under UPA II gave its approval for raising the Mountain Strike Corps but withheld clearance for additional or specific funding!
A year later, there is no sign of specific funds being earmarked for the Mountain Strike Corps, forcing the Army to 'cannibalise' its war wastage reserves (WWR) --stores that are earmarked for emergencies for sustaining the troops in the event of a war.
"We are not getting additional budget. A certain amount of about Rs 5,000 crore has been set aside saying that this is meant for the Mountain Corps. But this is not over and above the budget. So, we need money over and above the budget if we are able to make up all the stores and weapons which we have pulled out from the War Wastage Reserves for the initial raisings," he is supposed to have told Parliament's Standing Committee of Defence.
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