Indian Army begins work on GOCO Model

On December 7, 2020, the Indian Army began its work on the GOCO (Government Owned Contractor Operated) Model. The model is extended to base workshops and ordnance depots. The workshops play vital role as they ensure the Indian Army is operationally prepared all the time.

Highlights

The workshops are assigned the role of overhauling (testing and repairing) of weapons. They also manufacture spares. The workshops have an annual turnover of Rs 10,000 crores. Though, the GOCO model in army workshops helps reducing government expenditure on armed forces and increase combat capability of the army, there are certain issues associated with the model.

Issues

• In GOCO model, the assets owned by government will be operated by the private industries. In such cases, there are possibilities of protraction of assets and the expertise being absorbed by private industry.
• The military manpower involved in the workshops is only 25% and 75% are civilian staffs. The private companies might insist on rationalizing the work force. The ratio of 75: 25 will become difficult to maintain.

Benefits

The best technologies grow at faster rate. Under the GOCO model, the private companies need not make investments on land, machinery and other support systems. The missions are set by government and the private sectors are given full independence in implementing the missions using their best practices.

The main advantage of the model is that the targets are achieved in lesser time frame. Also, it will boost competitiveness among the private entities paving way to newer technologies.

Army workshops

On the whole, the Indian Army operates eight workshops all over the country. They are located in Jabalpur, Allahabad, Meerut, Kirkee, New Delhi, Agra, Bengaluru and Kankinara. Of these only the workshop at Bengaluru manufactures spares. Rest of the workshops are involved only in overhauling.

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2020