Defence Notes
New Delhi, 11 December 2006
Service Chiefs’
Concern
DEPLETION IN
WAR-WAGING POTENTIAL
By B.K. Mathur
The Service Chiefs have made two significant observations at
the combined commanders conference in New
Delhi the other day. Very crucial for the armed
forces, they stressed in the
presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that corruption scandals in defence
deals should not be allowed to derail modernization plans and that the Defence
Research and development Organisation (DRDO) must get its act together, instead
of delivering too little, to late. The
PM was told that the long delays in the procurement of desperately needed
military hardware and software was causing a steady depletion in the war-waging
potential of the armed forces.
The Chiefs’ comment that the tardy progress in the projects of the DRDO with unrealistic
time-frame is at once unfair to the Organisation, which is doing a good job for
over three decades. There is no denying the fact that several important
projects have been delayed for long. But it needs to be understood by the
Service headquarters, and the Prime Minister too, that the delays have not been
caused by the DRDO, or its laboratories or the Ordnance factories. The culprit is the system for procurement of
military hardware and software and faulty defence production industry. A high-level committee, headed by former
bureaucrat Vijay Kelkar and comprising some leading industrialist diagnosed the
disease from which the industry has been suffering for decades.
India’s young defence scientists,
technicians and producers are today the envy of the world. They are capable of designing,
developing and producing best of the military machines, weapons and weapon
systems, including the ones with unclear warheads. Their capabilities have been
proved time and again during the last few years. They have designed, developed
and produced latest types of missiles
considered to be the main weapon in the present day war strategy. We owe this
to the President of India APJ Abdul Kalam, formerly DRDO Chief, known as the
“missile man”. Why missiles only. The DRDO has designed and developed
latest state-of-the-art battle tanks, combat aircraft and even aircraft careers
for Navy.
Unfortunately, however, such designed and developed machines
could not be produced all these years for various reasons. First among them is the fact that purchases
from abroad have their own attraction, commissions
et all, at the cost of national interest.
Secondly, the defence industry is quite different from the civil
industry. A modern and sophisticated military equipment has a large number of
components, running into thousands and that too of different heads like
electronics, ammunition, fire-power and all that. In other words, no one set of scientists and
technicians can possibly undertake
production of all components. Importantly no defence production unit in the
world, even in the highly advanced countries, can produce all the components
under one roof--- and one unit. Inter-dependence is a necessity in defence industry.
Some years ago, I distinctly remember to have been told in Bangalore that a U.S.
defence production company was importing from India certain small components for
production of a highly-sophisticated gas-turbine engine. The explanation of this
import was simple. It was economical for
the American 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 this must have been
one of the rare smaller components. The private sector industry there does not
mind setting up production units even for smaller components, because the
entire U.S.
defence industry is export-oriented and is a major component of the national
economy.
Things are quite different in India’s defence industry. Here a produce is sold for a limited purpose,
and the setting up of a special facility for its production is not economically
viable. And, therefore, no private sector would like to spend his capital for
producing such components for defence armament which have limited market and no
profitability, yet require high capital investment. Thus, it becomes necessary to go abroad for direct import of the
components required for even wholly indigenously designed and produced machinery.
Also, and quite significantly, a tendency has fast grown over the years for
Defence PSUs personnel rushing abroad to “see the world” and take all the
advantages of purchasing abroad.
The Defence Ministry, the DRDO and the defence public sector
undertakings have been making efforts to reduce import contents in defence
equipment for decades. It has been realized all these years that the country
cannot afford to depend entirely on imports for its defence requirements, and
that self-reliance cannot be achieved without proper participation and
commitment in national effort of the civil sector. It is a fact that the
Defence PSUs which alone produce at present military equipment have to depend
on others for a large number of components. In their case the dependence is on
imports--- and not on the civil or the private sector, like in most other
countries.
This situation which the country’s defence industry faces
today raises several issues. Two
among them are more significant, requiring examination in depth. The percentage of indigenous component is a
misnomer, an entirely misused terminology. Two, it is not economically viable
in the present-day context to involve the private sector in the production of
components for defence machinery, being designed and produced
indigenously. The industrialists in the
private sector are actually “traders” in India, whose only motive of
activity is profit and money-making.
They cannot really take on a production which has a limited and
fast-changing market like the defence equipment market at home and abroad. If they change their attitude and become
partners in national effort for security, then only can their partnership
initiative succeed.
In sum, if the scientists of the DRDO and its laboratories
are given the required inputs, sans the politics of the file-pushers and
policy-makers in the Government, India’s defence industry is capable of
producing the latest military machines wholly indigenously with, of course, the
cooperation of the private sector industry.
As pointed out earlier, no military machine in the world can be produced
under one roof. The practice for always
running for imports should be stopped and the country’s self-reliance efforts
stepped up. Why spend in foreign exchange when the required equipment can be
produced at house. Do not play the blame
game, instead set the defence production industry right. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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