NEW DELHI, Aug 7 — The court of inquiry which went into the cause for fire at the ammunition depot, Bharatpur, in May this year has pointed to major deficiencies in the facilities for storage of ammunition.

The report has pointed not only to the ammunition at the depot being in access to the storage capacity that was available but also to the lack of fire fighting facilities and personnel. Besides the communication facilities at the depot were lacking and even the electrical wiring was not up to the mark.

While as much as 12,000 ton of ammunition worth Rs 393 crore was destroyed in the fire which also affected the nearby villages, the court of inquiry report also points to a possibility of general ignorance towards maintaining the safety standards. It has now been decided that senior officers would be sent to all ammunition depots to inspect the safety and security measures to prevent all such future recurrences.

Incidentally, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Command, has recommended administrative action against nine Army and six civilian officers.

As a follow up action, security measures within the depot have been tightened both inside and outside and cases have been initiated for augmentation of Defence Security Corps Platoon.

Although the findings of the court of inquiry are not conclusive about the cause of fire but attribute it to a possible short circuit, high temperature and the presence of strong winds, which incidentally discount the earlier theory floated by the authorities that the fire started as result of “elephantine grass” outside the compound of the ammunition depot.

The authorities had said that fire started in the grass and then later spread to the ammunition plinths inside the depot. But there was no explanation as how the fire crossed two walls, that being the outside compound wall and another one inside, to reach the stored ammunition.

So now the theory of a “possible electric short circuit” also points to the possibility of the fire actually starting inside the depot compound and not outside as had been claimed earlier. The report interestingly also points out that there were no fire tenders within the compound and there had been a long standing ban on filling up the posts of fire fighting personnel.

The report has now recommended relaxation on the ban for filling up the vacancies of authorised fire fighting personnel.

The findings of the court of inquiry said that while the authorised storage capacity at the Bharatpur Ammunition Depot was 23,000 metric ton, both in open plinths and covered storage, approximately 7,000 metric ton of ammunition was stored over and above the capacity of the depot. The officials have pointed to the operational requirement, including that for Operation Vijay in Kargil as the reason for access ammunition at the depot.

The court of inquiry has now recommended the need to provide funds for additional covered storage, that each guard post and watch tower be provided with telephone connections, in view of the threat of short circuit due to overhead electric cables, in future underground cable be resorted to and fresh board should be convened to reassess the requirement of fire fighting equipment in view of the additional ammunition lying in the depot.