IN TUNE WITH TIMES
By BRIG K Harikumar , Director [ Ops and Plans ] , EME Directorate , Army HQ , New Delhi
October 1993
The advent of Independence, bringing in its wake Partition, left the young technical Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers with rural stock to recruit from which led to some difficulties. On 15 August 1947, there were only 201 Indian officers in the EME. To make up the deficiency, civilian workshop officers equivalent in status to Captain and Major were recruited to replace EME officers in static units. Officers from the Infantry, Armoured Corps, ASC and AOC were seconded to the EME and used to fill the vacancies of Adjutant, Quarter Master, Establishment Officer etc.
The deficiency in the number of personnel in the category of JCOs and WOs were made up by the recruitment of suitable civilians educated upto the Inter (science) as WO class 2. These personnel had first to undergo a long Armament Artificer Course on certain equipment in use in the Army, and with them were a number of senior NCOs who were also considered suitable for this promotion. Parallel to the cadre of CWO in the officer ranks, a cadre of Civilian Workshop Supervisors were recruited to replace JCOs and WOs in static units. In 1950, the rank of WO was abolished with a view to equalising the responsibilities of the Armament Artificer. In the place of these were introduced the categories of JCO (Armt Art) and Havildar Major (Armt Art). In the case of OtherRanks, the shortage of skilled technicians was made up to a large extent by stepping up the capacity and output of the training establishments.
In the year 1947, there were four EME Training Centres where basic training was imparted and one advanced training Centre at Chaklala which, after Partition, went to Pakistan. With a view to economy, it was decided in late 1947 to establish One EMECentre temporarily at Katni and an EME School temporarily at Poona. The Centre was responsible for imparting basic military and technical training to recruits while all advanced training was carried out at the school. In 1949, the Centre was moved to Bangalore. Initially there were three schemes for training namely the Officers Apprentice Scheme, Boys Apprentice Scheme and the Civilian Apprentice Training Scheme.
Reorganisation
Bringing the whole repair and recovery organisation under a central control, amalgamation of all technical personnel and equipment with other Arms and Services in the EME was carried out in 1951 as a result of the recommendations of the EME Reconstruction Committee under Brig Stuart. The time tested Echelon RepairSystem was formalised with the unit and light Repair elements provided through Unit Repair Organisations (UROs) and dedicated Light Aid Detachments (LAD) to equipment intensive units of Artillery, Engineers and Armoured Corps. During this period, various schemes were also introduced to increase production in the static workshops despite the rundown in combatant manpower. One such scheme was to man all 4th line units with 50% civilians and all second line static EME workshops with 20% civilians. A certain percentage of civilian supervisory personnel were also retained in the peace time Army. With the same end in view a much closer liaison was maintained with the AOC and each depot was given a second echelon EME workshop of its own.
The period from 1951 to 1962 also witnessed the re-equipping the Army from the leftovers of the war for its new role, and the Corps of EME responded to it with the creation of a Central Inspection Organisation at the ME Directorate under an Inspector EME in 1954. Besides, seven scaling cells were established in 1957 at the Ordnance Depots at Dehu Road, Kirkee, Delhi Cantt, Agra, Jabalpur, Chheoki and Kankinara. The training establishments were re-organised in the meantime in 1952 and the EME School from Poona and the EME Centre from Bangalore were shifted toSecunderabad. To cope up with the additional responsibilities of Maintenance Advice, Scaling and Production Control, a HQ Technical Services Group was raised in the close vicinity of the training establishment at Secunderabad and a HQ Base Workshop Group was formed at Delhi Cantt in 1959. During the same year, the ME Directorate was re-designated as the Directorate of EME .
The Era of Equipment Management
The 1962 war with China brought to sharp focus certain inadequacies of our Army as far as its terrain and environmental orientation was concerned. There were serious deficiencies in equipment as well. Therefore, the Defence planners launched an ambitious expansion scheme which included raising of mountain divisions, indigenisation of equipment and vehicles and large scale imports from friendly countries. EME on its part geared up for this new task and expanded its training and operational activities significantly. Three more training Centres were raised at Kamptee, Bhopal and Allahabad and an Apprentice Training School was added to the Bhopal Centre subsequently. Advance Base Workshops with 100 percent combatant manpower were raised for the Western and Eastern theatre in 1963, and an additional EME School (North) came up at Baroda in 1964 specialising in B vehicles, Armaments and Instruments. A new Industrial Engineering and Tactics Wing was added to the EME School at Secunderabad to improve the organisational and managerial skills of the officers of the Corps to face new challenges boldly. While the Jain Committee came up laying down norms and yardsticks for base repairs, the EME Field Force Organisation was reorganised in 1964 by raising EME battalions.
With the added responsibilities consequent to the introduction of more complex and sophisticated equipment especially in the field of electronics and the need for associating with those activity concerned with engineering support for equipment management, the role and charter of responsibilities of the Corps were revised in 1971 and promulgated through the medium of the Regulations for the Corps of EME by the Ministry of Defence.
The 1971 War and After
Towards the close of the sixties, new equipment and their complexity paved the way for a new thrust line to the Corps of EME namely preventive maintenance and its importance in equipment management. Probably, the first modern equipment fielded in the Army were the L 70 AD guns, the Abbot SP gun, the amphibious PT 76 and the Vijayanta tanks, not discounting the introduction of AN PRC 25 radio sets. The Army was fully geared up and ready when the war broke out in December 1971, once again with Pakistan. The organisational resilience and flexibility of the Corps was stretched to a great extent in view of the extended lines of communication and difficult terrain.
The 1971 war ushered in an era of austerity, cost consciousness and overall economy. Theplanners found out that we could not really afford the luxury of a large standing Army and at the same time improve its teeth and modernise its arsenal. The concept of teeth -to-tail ratio in favour of ‘bayonet strength’ gained currency amongst the General Staff and a close scrutiny was carried out to restructure the various logistics services on a need based and tailor made approach. The first such attempt in this direction was the reorganisation of the logistic set up in 1972 in two of our infantry divisions in a holding role in the Western Sector. Significant reduction in the strength of combatants were made with partial civilianisation and a static set up for the second echelon support. This was soon followed up in 1975, by reorganisation on of Vijayanta of the repair and recovery set up in the corps zones by raising Combined Workshops for various holding Corps on defensive role and Corps Maintenance Area Workshop for the Strike Corps, with field intermediate repair and recovery sub units as their constituent elements. Around the same period, the EME Centre at Kamptee and the Apprentice School at Bhopal were disbanded.
The Corps Turns High Tech
The period from 1978 to 1987 could be termed as the high tech era of the Army as well as the Corps of EME. Large proliferation of a variety of complex and multidisciplinary equipment and weapons were inducted to prepare the Armed Forces to face the fresh challenges arising out of the new power equation in the sub-continent. While many of these equipment were user -friendly, they posed very serious maintenance and repair problems. Signal equipment became modular in construction and the computers entered the scene in a big way. The Signals — EME division of repair responsibilities – generated a lot of heat and finally EME retained its role as the single repair agency with the Corps of Signals taking over the first line repairs to their own equipment and second line repairs to Static Signals Equipment. The one-to-one workshop concept for dedicated EME support was extended from 1977 onwards to various specialist units of Artillery, Signals and Engineers to accommodate the demands of air defense and of rocket artillery, missiles, electronic warfare, Plan AREN, Troposcatter and engineer bridging units. During this period, a reorganization of CEME Corps Troops, CEME Area and Command EME Troops were also undertaken.
The 80s saw the raising of the first EME battalion in 1982 for a mechanised division and this was closely followed by a large scale review and upgradation of the capabilities of the EME battalion in the Armoured Division in 1985 in conformity with the changes institute the capabilities of these divisions for a greater punch 7. situ’ repairs using Armoured Vehicle mounted re teams became the new concept in such cases. The EM battalion in the plains and mountains were also re-organisedin 1985 into the five workshop configuration to conform to the changes in their operational role and adoption of a modular concept. This reorganisation helped in providing an effective, intimate and timely engineering support to the integral brigades and the divisional troops.
EME Voids
The advent of the Seventh Army Plan ushered in the ‘Number Game’ for the Army as a whole and for the Corps of EME, in particular. While we saw a 200 percent increase in ‘A’ vehicle population and 70 percent increase in ‘B’ vehicle population over the last 30 years in the Army not accounting for the large variety of armaments and telecommunication equipment, the EME strength increased only by about 50 percent at the most. In the year 1986, a ceiling was imposed on the Army strength irrespective of the demands for new EME units to provide repair cover to the new raisings. Ironically, during the same year EME was called upon to take over the repairs to the helicopters of the newly formed Army Aviation Corps within the existing resources when part of its manpower were deployed in Sri Lanka to support the formation in Op Pawan.
The 90s introduced the concept of tailormade logistic setup in the field army as a result of an experiment carried out in one of the Infantry divisions in the Western Sector which was deemed to be a success and further validated by the second Experts Committee in 1991.
The Future
EME turns 50 this year and the Corps is at the crossroads in more than one sense. As the Army can ill afford any more accretions in the prevailing economic conditions, there is no alternative to a change in our strategy. It is time that we limit our field of operation to high-tech war like equipment which cannot be repaired ex-trade and hand over the remaining responsibilities to civil agencies or to the users themselves to the extent possible.