The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator Lieutenant-General Abdul Qayyum (retd). The committee was given a detailed and comprehensive briefing by Brigadier Nauman about the ongoing and completed projects by HIT, the budget allocation to HIT, capacity enhancement for commercial inland sales and exports and future vision of the Heavy Industries Taxila.
The chairman committee while terming Al-Khalid Tank the pride of nation praised the proposal of bringing an upgraded and progressive model 'Al-Khalid-2' to compete with developed weaponry. The committee was told that HIT has a capacity to produce 50 tanks per year but they are making 18 tanks on average due to budgetary constraints.
The committee strongly recommended that the allocation of budget to defense production industries should come directly to Ministry of Defense Production from the Finance Division instead of routing through the Ministry of Defense, and bureaucratic delays should be removed. The chairman committee observed that the committee will push for this proposal on its own and HIT also needs to take the matter up regularly.
The committee was told that HIT is not entitled to commercial activities on its own. It can only carry out commercial activities from the surplus capacity after fulfilling all kinds of defense needs of armed forces. Brigadier Nauman further proposed an amendment in the ordinance for exempting HIT from government audit and PPRA rules and allowing it to take up commercial activities to make the industry financially profitable. The committee agreed to the proposals of HIT and recommended that they can adopt a proposal on the same lines as of Pakistan Ordnance Factories.
The committee lauded the efforts of HIT and observed that defense production establishments in Pakistan have made tremendous contributions not only by equipping the armed forces but also by undertaking commercial sales. "Equipping our armed forces with tanks, and state-of-the-art ammunition not only means colossal savings but also promotes self-reliance," observed Abdul Qayyum. The committee advised the HIT leadership to do capacity building of their vendors, ensure coordination with defense production institutions and create a reserved pool of skilled work force to meet sporadic demands.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017