Army seeks enhanced cooperation from private sectors

New Delhi, Apr 8 (UNI) The Army today sought enhanced cooperation from the private sector to meet the security challenges faced by the country.

Addressing a seminar on Battlefield Management System here, Vice Chief Lt Gen M L Naidu called upon the private sector to play a bigger role in helping the armed forces to develop futuristic communication and IT-related applications.

''This is more important as electronic warfare systems will be critical to meet the security challenges.'' He also stressed the need for harnessing the synergy between the armed forces and the private sector to increase IT-enabled applications which would be vital in meeting the challenges.

The country's IT sector must extend its expertise and involvement to meet the Army's futuristic requirements as future wars would involve IT applications in a bigger way, Gen Naidu added.

While the future warfare would be intense, he said flexibility and mobility of forces hold the key to the outcome.

Gen Naidu said communication and information systems would play a vital role in that scenario.

The two-day seminar, organised by CII and the Army, would try to evolve an ideal system to enable the armed forces to integrate means of surveillance and engagement through an Automated Decision Support, and Command and Control Systems.

Addressing the seminar, Director General of Information Systems, Integrated Headquarters of Ministry of Defence (Army), Lt Gen Avadesh Prakash said communication support for Battlefield Management Systems need to be further enhanced to increase and improve the lethality of soldiers in a war zone.

Battlefield Management Systems are the force multipliers and comprise Command and Decision Support Systems, Surveillance Systems, Weapon Systems, Information Warfare systems and in-built Operational Logistic Systems.

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