BENGALURU: An acute shortage of staff at ordnance factories, the mainstay of defence production, is affecting manufacturing schedules, research and development of new products and quality control, all impacting India's ambitious plans for enhanced indigenisation in this sector.As of January 2017, ordnance factories collectively have 70,810 technical staff, 41 per cent less than the 1.2 lakh sanctioned posts, according to information accessed from the ministry of defence. There's also a 44 per cent shortage of non-technical staff-15,083 against the sanctioned strength of 22,524. Factories have a shortage of 40 per cent in Grade A officers. While their sanctioned strength is of 2,981, the actual number is 1,808.The number of technical staff responsible for the bulk of the workload including maintenance of machinery and equip ment, handling of ammunition and armaments has been steadily decreasing. In 2015, this number was 74,634, as compared to 76,273 in 2014.

Source: Economic Times April 10, 2017 03:22 UTC