Defence Acquisitions Wanted: A Paradigm Shift

While a recent internal report of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) points to the structural and procedural inadequacies in the acquisition process of defence items, it will be unrealistic to expect any structural improvements in the near future, especially if the ministry continues to follow the past practice of merely tinkering with the existing disjointed system built around the capital acquisition wing. This approach is unlikely to achieve much as this wing is not even in complete charge of the entire procurement process. This needs to change.

- Amit Cowshish

It is becoming increasingly clear that despite all the efforts made in so far defence acquisition process has not been able to break loose from the muddle it has been in for quite some time. To be sure, it is not just on account of the budgetary constraints. As reported by the NDTV recently, an internal report of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) points to the structural and procedural inadequacies in the acquisition process.

The report, apparently prepared by no less a person than the minister of state in the MoD, says that India’s weapons-buying is frequently crippled by “multiple and diffused structures with no single point accountability, multiple decision-heads, duplication of processes, delayed comments, delayed execution, no real-time monitoring, non project-based approach and a tendency to fault-find rather than to facilitate”.

This comes as no surprise. These problems have been known for a long time and indeed MoD has constituted several committees in the past, both distant and recent, to find ways of addressing the structural and procedural inadequacies, which lie at the heart of the problems, but there has either been no/inadequate follow-up or, surprisingly, the remedial measures taken by the ministry have ended up complicating the matters further.

A committee constituted by MoD in 2016 specifically to examine the feasibility of creating a defence procurement organisation had recommended setting up of an overarching and semi-autonomous organisation, to be located outside the defence security zone, free from the constraints of central staffing system, manned by professionals selected on the basis of post-specific qualifications with long tenures, and responsible for the entire process from formulation of the specifications to delivery of the equipment.