Will IOFS go the ITS way ?

1760 officers of the Indian Ordnance Factories Service are a worried lot these days. By the end of next year Ordnance Services Board could be corporatised. All major military powers in the world get their armament supplies from their PSUs and the private sector. In India, the Government directly produces not only armaments but also uniforms with Government servants working as highly paid tailors and cobblers. Dissatisfied with reliability, quality and cost of production, the top brass in the Indian Army has been demanding corporatisation of ordnance factories for a long time and feels that a strong Minister like Rajnath Singh can face down the workers' unions in the interest of defence preparedness and morale of the soldiers. While corporatisation of telephone services happened two decades back with drastic improvement in telephone services through modernisation, the career prospects of many officers of Indian Telecommunications Service (ITS) are still unclear. In the meantime the Government has appointed CS Vishwakarma (IOFS 1984) as Chairman of the Board at the level of Secretary to Government who will select a consultancy firm for implementing corporatisation.