A defence-expo has been planned at Chennai to demonstrate Indian defence systems and components to the world.
But for the domestic defence industry to prosper, the Indian government must step-up procurement of indigenously made ammunitions.
How does India’s procurement landscape look?
The four-day Def-Expo India in Chennai expects to ambitiously position India as an emerging defence manufacturing hub in the world.
It seeks to brand India as an exporter of defence systems and components and showcase strengths of the country’s public sector.
Such objectives appear a bit cheeky as India is the world’s top importer of arms and does not figure among the top 25 exporters of arms.
Yet, indigenisation of defence procurement is critical not just for strategic reasons but also for the success of the ‘Make in India’ mission.
India accounted for 12% of total global arms imports in the past 4 years
Of the total Indian imports, Russia accounted for a whopping 62%, followed by the US (15%), Israel (11%) and France.
The sheer size of the Indian defence procurements makes India a major market for major defence firms across the world.
How does our domestic defence industry fare?
India spends a third of its defence budget on capital acquisitions and about 60% of the defence related requirement is met through imports.
Thus, the opportunity to increase domestic procurement is large, which needs to be capitalised by the domestic PSUs like HAL and the private players.
Notably, companies like Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) have demonstrated technological mettle in producing high quality equipments like Tejas aircraft.
PSU shipyards like “Mazagaon Dock Shipbuilders” among others have demonstrated their ability to design and build naval vessel and submarines.
India is in fact one of the few nations with capabilities to design and build massive warships and high-tech submarines.
The country also has the capacity to build tanks, guns, rockets and missiles – thereby covering most of the equipments needed.
What is the way ahead?
In contrast to India’s rising imports of arms and equipment, China had reported a 19% drop in overseas purchases between in recent years.
It has emerged the 5th largest exporter of arms, accounting for 4.6% of the global arms export market.
For Indian to emulate China’s success in defence manufacturing, the government needs to demonstrate willingness to procure domestically.
Hence, the Union government needs to be ready to place large orders with the indigenous manufacturers both in the public sector and private.
Strengthening partnerships with international players for technology transfers is indeed a positive for enhancing domestic product competence.
