Monday, May 15 2006 16:30 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Ruling out any political pressure against test firing of India's longest-range surface-to-surface Agni-III missile, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said today (May 15,2006) it was 'self-imposed restraint' not to go ahead with it.

"We have no pressure on us. Nor are we putting any political pressure. It is just we have decided to have self-imposed restraint," he told reporters.

"As responsible members of the international community, we want to keep our international commitments on non-proliferation", the Defence Minister said when asked why India was not going ahead with testing of the Agni-III missile.

Self-restraint does not not mean that DRDO can't go ahead with cold bed tests for the sub-systems of the missile, Mukherjee said on the sidelines of a function to mark the three day conference of Chief controllers and controllers of Defence accountants here.

The Defence Minister's comments come after assertion by the country's top Defence Scientist M Natarajan yesterday (May 14, 2006) that DRDO had cleared all technical parameters for the test of the Missile, which will give New Delhi capability of hitting targets more than 4,000 kms away.

In his inaugural address to the conference, Mukherjee said his ministry planned to delegate powers on capital acquisitions to a lower levels to speed up the process of weapons induction.

"Naturally, there would be a limit prescribed", he said, while calling on defence accountants to float think tanks for better defence financial management.

He said under his stewardship, he hoped to achieve almost fifty-fifty parity in distribution of defence budget on capital outlay and revenue as the new UPA Government had a commitment to step up armed forces modernisation.

Mukherjee disclosed that internal consultations within his ministry had started for finalising the 11th defence plan and he hoped to complete the exercise in time and not not repeat past mistakes, when 10th Defence Plan had not even been drafted even after three and a half years.

Mukherjee told the Defence accountants that they should speedily get acquainted with the new life cycle support system being offered by US and other Western Nations as part of weapons system sales.

He also told them that there should be no laxity and efforts be made to ensure that there was 100 per cent utilisation of Defence budgetary grants.

"Whatever resources are allocated. they should be spent full. There should be no surrender of funds as it would not be acceptable", Mukherjee said.