TAPPING
THE HUGE POTENTIAL IN THE DEFENCE INDUSTRY
George
Fernandes*
Self-reliance was
the mantra the founding fathers of the Republic gave us. Indigenisation
was to be the road to reach that destination. We have travelled
on this road for a little over five decades and can look back
with pride on our achievements in self-reliance in every field
of human endeavour. The calibre of our scientists and technicians
has been well recognised the world over. Our defence scientists
have done us proud. India’s status as a nuclear weapon state is
their achievement.
The Prithvis and
Agnis and the 5.56 mm INSAS, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA),
the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) and a host of defence equipment
bear testimony to their competence. Despite all these achievements,
we have yet to travel a long way to be self-reliant in our defence
needs.
As of now, imported
goods for the defence forces continue to outnumber the indigenous
ones. Although it is not possible to completely do away with dependence
on imports, it should surely be possible to reduce the dependence
with each passing year, more so in the field of critical technology.
India’s focus is on to indigenously build and design most of the
things that we need. The scientists, the factories, the government,
the private sector, the large workforce and whosoever is concerned
- all have this responsibility. Self-reliance is our credo. The
huge potential in the defence industry needs to be tapped.
It is imperative
for us to establish indigenous capability to design, develop and
manufacture defence equipment and systems catering to the needs
of the country’s defence forces. A great advantage in this indigenous
development and production is the availability of spares and equipment
and service at short notice and at low costs.
We felt the need
for this in Kargil. Encouragement of in-house R&D in defence
public sector undertakings (DPSUs) and Ordnance Factories Board
and Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has resulted
in providing impetus to develop initiatives and the efforts to
challenge the barriers of technological innovation. The result
of this is that India can boast of having designed and developed
state-of-the-art defence equipment, meeting global standards and
accepted against global competition. Our achievement in developing
the LCA and ALH has been appreciated by several countries. Some
such countries want to be partners in this enterprise. These developments
do us proud.
The emerging
demand of new and high technology products and services call for
continuous update technologies through in-house development and
transfer of technologies from abroad. Each of the defence public
sector units and ordnance factories are in possession of several
unique technologies. Exchange of information and pooling of the
technological resources will ensure better utilization of assets,
product improvement and development of new products. It will also
avoid duplication of efforts and generally achieve better value
for the money.
There is a vast
amount of wealth of information on various technologies relating
to design, manufacture and maintenance and we have with us a large
infrastructure of machinery and processors in our defence production
units and ordnance factories. In fact, together they constitute
one of the largest repositories of technology and skilled manpower.
Thanks to this the production infrastructure consisting of the
DPSUs, ordnance factories, Director General Quality Assurance,
Director General Air Quality Assurance, Directorate of Standardization
and organisations like these that the country has a well established
degree of self-reliance and autonomy in defence production. They
have served the Indian defence services well. In-house research,
design and development undertaken by these organisations on their
own and in cooperation with the country’s multi-disciplinary research
development organisation have no doubt contributed to the nation’s
some of the most modern, sophisticated and reliable defence equipment.
The Society of Defence Technologists (SODET) which was founded
at the initiative of the Ministry of Defence is working towards
the objective of sharing expertise, facilities and technologies
with all concerned. It is this sharing and the ultimate synergy
that will be brought about which will lead to better production,
both in terms of quantity and quality. We may have done good work
but the road ahead is long and may be difficult. But it is certain
that with the outstanding minds that we have in the country we
should be there in the near future. Constant teamwork
among defence production organisations, DRDO and National R&D
labs is required to build advanced but affordable defence equipment.
Sharing of expertise and facilities among the organisations during
the design and prototype development phase and later during production
will result in optimum utilization of resources and also provide
for sharing of risks which cannot be ruled out in development
programmes. One aspect of defence production
relates to exports. In-house design and capabilities should not
be limited to in-house supplies only. The market for armaments
and defence-related equipment in the world is vast, but we do
not have even a small portion of it right now. Efforts have been
made but we are nowhere. Our defence production units should strive
for efforts of rupees one thousand crore this year. A strategy
for this has been worked out and the process is on. But we need
to accelerate. There are times when one feels that our exports
are negligible because our PSUs and ordnance factories do not
have the kind of incentives that other countries give. Being assured
of orders from the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence may
be leaving our PSUs with little incentive to produce more and
look for outlets abroad. This attitude of complacency needs to
be changed. Export is a tedious process but also highly profitable
and provides the greatest impetus to growth.(PIB Features)
*Defence
Minister
