India News and Features Alliance (INFA) - Exploit Indigenous Expertise:LACUNAE IN DEFENCE PRODUCTION POLICY, by B.K. Mathur, 26 February 2007

It was extremely nice of President Kalam to have a question-answer interaction with the middle-level Officers of the armed forces at the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington Equally welcome was that the President frankly responded to questions on politics, diplomacy and economics beside, of course, the defence issues. One of the questions, which this column has been raising for decades, and time and again, pertained to indigenous weapons designing and production. One Wing Commander doing the Course rightly and concernedly observed that a weapon designed and developed becomes obsolete before it is inducted into the Service. The President, who is the Supreme Commander of the armed forces, was quick to react, but evaded the truth which he knows best. over the last week-end.

The missile-man, as we knew Kalam Sahib as the Chief of the Defence Ministry’s Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) only gave the example of the indigenously-developed BrahMos missile and stated that the Organisation has been asked to suggest a vision for the weapon’s platform and sensors at an affordable cost. As the history of the DRDO tells us, the young scientists of the Organisation are capable of achieving the target given to them in the required timeframe. They are the envy of the world for designing and developing state-of-the-art weapons and weapon systems. The only problem is their production, which led to the Wing Commander’s observation: By the time the weapon is inducted into the force it becomes obsolete.

The DRDO’s contribution to the country’s armed forces is well-known. The defence scientists and technicians have been designing and developing over the years military machines and systems comparable with the ones produced in the developed countries whose defence industry is their main economic activity. But the problem, as noticed earlier, invariably arises at the production stage, giving one the impression that the seven defence public sector enterprises and 40 Ordnance factories across the country lack the capability to produce the state-of-the-art machines and systems. However, this is far from the truth. They have the capability and wherewithal to produce the latest, as proved by their performances since 1962, after the Chinese invasion and again after the Kargil confrontation in 1999.

The largest Departmentally-run undertaking is presently meeting all the requirements of the armed forces and, importantly, can be trusted to produce all that we prefer to import for reasons other than quality and for creating defence scandals. The latest Ordnance factory has the capacity to produce not only the ammunition for the Bofors gun but also the capability to produce indigenously 155 mm. howitzer gun under technology transfer agreement. Alas, our defence planners have preferred to get the howitzers for the Indian Army from abroad. The production capability of this factory includes that of the India’s main battle tank, the controversial MBT-Arjun.

The history of the production of the MBT-Arjun clearly highlights the snag, better call it tragedy of the Government of India’s indigenous defence production policy that has caused unpardonably long delays in such important machines like the Arjun, which was initially named MBT-72, as it was expected to be produced in 1972, and the light combat aircraft (LCA). The whole trouble is about the absence of a well-considered military equipment policy. Take, for example again, the story of the MBT. The Army first asked during the 1960s for a 1,000 hp power-pack (engine) and then revised it to 1500 hp, perhaps without realizing that it takes nearly 15 years to design, develop and produce such an engine. That is the reason why the Arjun tank is presently being produced with an imported power-pack, causing delay and, importantly, necessitating off-the-shelf procurement from Russia of the T-series tanks.

The result of such an ill-advised policy causes not only undue delays and increasing uncertainly of indigenous projects that leads to a rush for imports and, concernedly, the scandals and corruption associated with defence projects which, at times, causes import of even sub-standard or obsolete machines at high costs, despite the fact that we have an indigenous production capability which matches any other in the world. Not only that. This policy of the vested interests and corrupt persons, has caused neglect of the Ordnance factories’ expertise. Several of these factories have been crying for long about the need for modernizing their outdated machines and updating marketing technologies through which much foreign exchange could be earned through exports of some of their produce.

In this context it is necessary to understand some facts about the defence industry which make it quite different from the civil, profit-making industry. First, a modern and sophisticated equipment has a large number of components running into thousands, and that too of different heads like the electronic ammunition, fire power and all that. What this leads to is that no one set of scientists and technicians can possibly look into the production of all the components. Importantly, no defence production unit in the world, even in highly militarily advanced countries can produce all the components under one roof---and one unit. It is economically not viable. Interdependence is necessary in the defence industry.

Some years ago this writer was told in Bangalore, the hub of defence industry, that an American defence production company was importing from India certain small components for production of a highly-sophisticated gas-turbine engine. This was later confirmed by Kalam Sahib, then Chief of the DRDO. The explanation for this import was simple. It was economic for the US company to import that particular component from India or anywhere else, because it was pointless to set up a special production facility at high costs. But over a period of time the private sector industry in the US has grown and set up separate facilities for production of even the smallest of components since the entire industry there is export-oriented and is a major component of the national economy.

India’s civil industry could also chip in and set up facilities which could not only be used at home but also exported. The defence industry has been suffering considerably for decades due to massive imports of highly-sophisticated machinery. In fact, India’s defence forces became so much dependent on imports that not much effort was made to indigenize production of even ordinary equipment. No doubt, the industry has license-produced most of the machinery as per the Government policy. But in that process it did not concentrate much on the production of spares, leading to a major crisis for India’s armed forces.

Doubtless, the crisis has always been caused by the Government’s ill-advised production and import policies, which call for a fresh look, keeping in view the fact that our scientists and technocrats are inferior to none in the world. If they are given the required inputs and resources, sans the politics and the interests of the file-pushers in the Government, they are capable of producing anything the forces need. The practice of always running for imports could be eliminated and the expertise available indigenously exploited without compromising on quality. The only thing is to have the will and right direction of the defence policy-makers.---INFA