Dr. Sudershan Kumar
Ever since the Modi Government has taken over the reigns of the country, a constant emphasis and thrust has been on making India self sufficient and a world superpower. To achieve this afore mentioned vision, the concept of making India Atma Nirbhar in key areas including Defence seems indispensable. This assumes even more significance in the wake of covid pandemic. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 20th May 2020 reiterated his vision of making “Atma Nirbhar Bharat” while announcing the COVID-19 related economic package. This concept of self reliance, is imperative not only to prepare India for a much bigger and strategic role in the fast changing dynamics of the globalized world but also to minimize the dependency on other countries. But by no means does it aim to propagate alienation. The present Government of India has taken numerous initiatives such as changing the definition of MSME’s, boosting scope for private participation and increase of foreign direct investment in defence etc. Many in the country have designated this as a repacked version of Make in India by using the new tag line “Vocal For Local”. But ironically, this push by the Government has yielded fruits especially at the time when the country is battling the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. This is evident by the fact that India’s personnel Protective Equipment sector has risen exponentially from Zero before March 2020 to 150,000 per day in just two to three months. Similar push is required in renewable energy, information technology and defence manufacturing to bolster the economy of the country. Besides, the aggressive expansionist posture adopted by China along LAC in close proximity with Pakistan furthermore necessitates and endorses the significance of self reliance in defence. Moreover the recent incidents of incursions, scuffles, and face off at LAC and frequent cease fire violations along LOC especially targeting civilian populations are clear future telltale signs that India is destined to face multi fold security threats from Northern & Western neighbours. Hence calibrated and coordinated efforts both on long term and short basis from all stakeholders are required to achieve 80 to 90 percent Atma -Nirbartha for indigenous development and manufacturing of systems in defence. Ironically, even after seven decades of independence, India could achieve self-reliance in development and manufacturing of indigenous systems to the tune of 35 to 40% only. Rest 60% needs of armed forces are met through import of major defence systems from friendly countries which creates vulnerability during crisis. Therefore the need of the hour is to thoroughly introspect our past strategy and work towards filling the gaps in the light of the swift changing global scenario since World-II. Furthermore, after a detailed analysis, it’s very evident that the global scenario after world war-II underwent a paradigm shift with countries following the policy of nurturing their Defence Industry Base (DIB) for external threats especially when the world was divided in two blocks Eastern Block and Western block. There after the disintegration of Soviet Union and the end of cold war again facilitated a security scenario alteration drastically. Most of these nations revised their security policy. For sustenance of their Defence Industry Base (DIB), they also adopted the approach of manufacturing through privatization, international trade, forming alliances, and pooling resources of likeminded nations. Even the United States of America and Russia made defence export as their critical component of their policy and laid greater focus on R&D and manufacturing by spending nearly 2.8% and 1.5% respectively of their GDPs on R&D. Interestingly Israel. even though a small country comes in the category of 5 top defence exporters with defence export worth nearly 7.2 billion US $. Besides countries like Japan, Germany, South Korea, France spend nearly 3.4%, 2.9%, 3.6% and 2.3% of their GDP on R&D respectively. On the contrary, India is heavily dependent on foreign systems / platform to cater to the needs of armed forces. Therefore, introspection is required into the low indigenous development rate and delay in manufacturing despite the presence of rich pool of young talented and innovative scientific manpower. Also this tortoise approach over the years comes against the backdrop of huge infrastructure for R&D in the form DRDO,ISRO, DAE, IIT’s, NIT’s, large number of Universities and Technical Institutes and for manufacturing ordinance factories, and defence PSU’. Following reasons can be cited : Firstly, the ownership of defence related projects from development to manufacturing among developer, manufacturer and end user is not well defined. It is also not linked with accountability and responsibility. This resulted into cost overrun and time delay.
Secondly, Indian defence budget is around 448,820 crores (2019-20) with capital outlay more than one lakh crores. This capital portion must be cumulative, non-lapsable and project oriented with separate budget for strategic projects. R&D component must be enhanced from 0.9% to at least 1.5 percent.
Thirdly, the gestation period is too long. Manufacturing infrastructure is not adequate to produce large numbers in short time. It is only confined to ordnance factories and defence PSUs. It takes years to execute the orders as a result the technology becomes obsolete. Although in recent past, efforts have been made to rope in private players for defence manufacturing still a long road needs to be travelled.
Fourth, authorities at the helm of affairs have not been able to tap the potential of the younger innovative minds especially in the field of information war fare and space weaponisation. In these genres and frontiers of research, genius Indian minds can excel and lead the world if tapped properly. Time and again, these young talented minds have always delivered and developed various technological innovations at very low costs and in a record time.
Moreover, last but not the least, and the most important is the frail coordination between all the stakeholders that is MOD, Services, R&D organizations, manufacturing agencies including the private industry. The blame game which further ensues following their failure further vitiates the process.
Lastly and significantly, the short term long term strategy for indigenous development of critical technologies keeping new millennium threats in mind has to be evolved. Parallelly the immediately needs can be met through ex-import.
To strengthen the Atma Nirbharta in defence the present Modi Government has already initiated a number of measures. Notably among them are:- the appointment of four star general as Chief of defence staff(CDS), increase in foreign direct investment(FDI),reforms in procurement procedures, allowing Indian companies for export of defence equipment to friendly countries including restriction on import of 101 items, also DRDO handing over list of 108 items to industry and many others. But a lot more is required. First and foremost, we need a correct assessment of the new millennium future security threats emanating from newer technologies in five verticals. These are conventional, unconventional, information war fare (including cyber war fare. artificial intelligence and quantum communication) deep sea technologies and space research and many newer technologies. For that a task force, comprising of ex Service Chiefs, ex R&D experts and strategists from think tanks, needs to be formed with clear mandate to predict and foresee the future threats for next fifty years and forecast the technologies to contain and thwart these threats.
Task of development of these critical technologies on war footing be assigned to younger genius minds with incentives and rewards. Second, greater push is required for up gradation and modernization of manufacturing infrastructure with abrogation of monopoly of Defence PSUs and Ordinance factories. Equal level playing field be provided to private players with firm commitment of numbers, life cycle supports& maintenance including spares. Third, the much talked about reforms in armed forces be expedited.
Besides local youths from the border villages be enrolled in ITBP, Ladakh, Scouts, Territorial army for manning the Indian borders This move will serve as double edged weapon for maintaining the strict vigil along the border and will also provide employment to local youth of the area. Fourth, it is often observed that development of technology takes much less time as compared to induction and manufacturing. To overcome this issue, a consortium approach be adopted from conception to development, then induction and manufacturing. This will pave the way for complete synergy between end user, developer and manufacturer. There must be R&D audit, Manufacturing audit Induction audit. The ownership of the project be fixed with sense of responsibility and accountability with rewards and punishment. The author is of the opinion that the implementation of these steps will not only make country Atma Nirbhar in defence but also pave the ways for Bharat to become Vishwa Guru.
(The author is former Director General & Special Secretary DRDO, MoD GoI)
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