New Delhi, June 17: A conference of the chiefs of unified military commands will be opened tomorrow by defence minister A.K. Antony who is likely to express concern that there have been delays in purchases of major hardware for the forces.

The unified commands are tri-service formations involving personnel of the army, the navy and the air force and are usually headed in rotation by Lieutenant General equivalent officers of each of the three forces.

Among these commands are the Strategic Forces Command — theoretically the custodian of all nuclear weapons — the Andaman & Nicobar Command, the only joint theatre command, and the Integrated Defence Staff, the think tank of the services that studies acquisitions, personnel issues and drafts long- term plans.

The conference will be held in the headquarters of the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS).

The IDS, in particular, is tasked with collating reports from the Defence Intelligence Agency and also assesses requirements of the forces and pinpoints the countries and companies from where the hardware can be sourced.

Antony confirmed yesterday that one of the biggest acquisitions contracted by India — the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov — from the Russians could be delayed.

“There are problems. We are trying to sort them out,” he said. The Gorshkov, to be rechristened the INS Vikramaditya, was contracted for about $1.5 billion in 2005 and was slated to be delivered in 2008.

But that now looks like a remote possibility because the refit of the carrier is behind schedule in Russia’s Sverdlovsk port.

Moscow is also understood to be asking for more because of an escalation in costs and has moved its currency of choice to the euro from the dollar.

This was one of the reasons defence secretary Shekhar Dutt made a trip to the Russian capital last month.