Taking The Rust Off The Cannon

To transition from a net importer of armaments to a key player in the world mart, India needs a new ecosystem for defence production.

- Manish K.Jha

AT DEF EXPO 2018 IN CHENNAI in mid-April, India displayed the indigenously built BrahMos missile and the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft to showcase its advancements in defence production. Obviously, India sees herself as an exporter of military hardware in the years ahead and not as the net importer that it is now. Perhaps, that is precisely what the new Defence Production Policy 2018 unfurled late in March also strives to do.

Seven decades after Independence and a labyrinth of ordnance factories that have only grown in numbers since, India continues to purchase 60 per cent of its defence equipment from the global mart. India’s annual purchase of military hardware is close to $5.5 billion, or more than the combined armament purchases of China and Pakistan.

Announcing its Make in India initiative in 2014, the A Narendra Modi government had underscored the financial drain in arms imports and the absence of a coherent policy to overcome it. As many as eight defence public sector undertakings (DPSUs), 41 ordnance factories (OFs) and 49 Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratories dot the country. This massive infrastructure has enabled development of indigenous technology and products like communications and missile technology, but complex military hardware still has to be purchased abroad. The technological chasm between the best in the market and homegrown hardware remains significant.