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 The
Spring season has been unusually festive
this year, thanks to two major events, the
DefExpo 2010 in New Delhi and India Aviation
2010 in Hyderabad.
The biggest of the global players were
in India, thanks to the rising demand for
aircraft, ships, tanks, guns and various
systems for defence and for aircraft and
related systems for civil aviation. Ironically,
the requirements in defence are Most Immediate,
due to the lack of action after 1990 in
replacing the old and outdated Soviet- vintage
equipment that each of the three Services
is saddled with.
Defence Minister A K Antony admitted in
the Parliament that “we are lagging
by 15 years in procurement” but thankfully,
as he acknowledged, “now procurements
have commenced.” Nonetheless, it would
still be a long way before the shortfall
is made up; fast tracking is simply not
in our veins till an enemy hits us, as was
done during the 1999 Kargil War and in the
26/11 Mumbai terror attack.
A senior officer lamented recently to
this writer: We take time in choosing a
system, undergoing exhaustive procedures
diligently. But by the time a decision is
taken, either there are inquiries –
possibly by vested interests – or that
system is picked by an adversary country,
which has “efficient procurement procedures.”
Helicopters, artillery guns, thermal imagers,
there are numerous examples.
Events like DefExpo are good. Our Armed
Forces officers and men, as well as officers
in the Ministry of Defence, have a first-hand
chance to look at new technologies coming
from tech-rich companies. The knowledge
gained thus, as also that gleaned from interest
in technological developments, should help
in speeding up the acquisition process.
In fact, it should be mandatory for civil
service officers to do a stint at the National
Defence College (NDC) or Institute for Defence
Studies and Analyses (IDSA) for getting
an assignment in the Ministry of Defence.
India’s defence budget is just about
2 per cent, or approximately 30 per cent
less than what should be normal in normal
circumstances. There should be a sincere
effort to hike it to more than 3 per cent
as the already obsolete weapons have to
phased out in the coming few years and the
process of replacing and augmenting them
needs to be accelerated.
A soldier is willing to fight and die
for his country but he must command the
edge in equipment.
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