AFTER THE rise of domestic defence manufacturing in the private sector, the defence ministry is now emphasising the need not only for components used by the armed forces be manufactured within the country, but that they also be designed and developed in-house instead of foreign countries. This line of thinking was made clear at the Vibrant Gujarat Regional Conference (VGRC) in Rajkot, where Sanjeev Kumar, Union Secretary at the Department for Defence Production (DDP) told industrialists from Saurashtra, “Even in defence acquisition from indigenous companies, first priority is given to those products which are designed, developed and manufactured all in India.”
The 1993-batch IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre, who earlier served as chairman of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and was involved in the setting up of the Hirasar International Airport in Rajkot, said, “The prime minister started allocating large amounts from the defence acquisition budget, for indigenous sources – which now stands at 75 per cent of total defence acquisition budget. But, it doesn’t mean that all 75% of products have been developed and designed in India. It only means that it is finally supplied by companies that are stationed in India.”
While he agreed that this reassured the Indian defence manufacturing market, he said it was not enough to achieve “full self-reliance or Aatmanirbharta.”
Sanjeev Kumar said, “Even in defence acquisition from indigenous companies, first priority is given to those products which are designed, developed and manufactured all in India. We are giving such products first priority because self reliance will not be good enough unless we have control over design. Full control means that whatever we want to do in future with that design, either further integrate are indigenous arms or other payloads without being dependent on foreign original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Or when we want to integrate one platform with another platform, we don’t have to be dependent on foreign OEMs and we can do it by ourselves which is the fundamental requirement of being self reliant.”
Kumar added, “If we don’t own the design, if we don’t own the intellectual property rights (IPR), it won’t work.”
The union secretary clarified that he did not mean IPR in the sense of the legal document but the actual Research and Development (R&D). He said that he did not mean that Indian companies had to hold the legal IPR that they had purchased from a foreign company. “I mean IPR of products that have been designed and developed by our own scientists and engineers. This would be complete self-reliance with complete control over the supply chain. That means whenever we want we can scale it up, we can diversify, and the supply chain should be resilient. Only then can we say that we have become self reliant,” he said.
He added, “The (manufacturing) journey has started but we still have a long way to go. We have started production in India either with our own designs or designs taken from other countries, we are exporting to other countries but we have to start designing our own platform level machines which are required during adverse situations on the borders.”
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On the quality of indigenously developed products, the Union Secretary said, “We need accuracy and quality, which are the things on which the armed forces will never compromise on. If a Jawan takes out his gun after 4 or 5 years, it should still perform at the same level that it would have performed on the day of testing, without deterioration. It is not unsurmountable. It is 100% achievable and many of us have already done so. What it requires is a different mindset, one of being in the game for the long term because you don’t just have to supply it today, but have to vouch for its quality in the years and decades to come.”
On the development of India’s domestic defence production sector, Sanjeev Kumar said, “When Modiji became PM for the first time, the size of India’s domestic defence industry was around Rs46,000 crore, which has now gone up to Rs1.53 lakh crore. But more dramatic is the export figure. In 2013-14, the export of defence equipment from India was around Rs686 crore, which has now reached Rs24,000 crore.”
On the role of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in defence production, he said, “Earlier, the contribution of public sector units in defence production was around 80-85%. But now the contribution of the private sector has reached about 30 to 35 per cent. In the past 10 years the share of the private sector in defence production has risen and the share of PSUs is falling. The barometer of success is when a large number of MSMEs start contributing to the sector.”
On the number of MSMEs contributing to the defence production in India, the senior bureaucrat said, “We know the number of MSMEs that are in the defence sector. We have a portal through which we offer opportunities for indigenization of the components, sub-components and assemblies which are being used by Defence PSUs. We extended this portal last year and started registering companies who are supplying either directly to our armed forces or to major defence companies. We found more than 20,000 companies that are supplying components consistently to our armed forces directly or to Defence PSUs as well as to major private sector companies.’
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Sanjeev Kumar also touched on geopolitics, saying, “As we read everyday, the world is changing very fast but saying this has become a cliche. But the truth is that it is really happening. It is only when we see things in real time unfolding before us and it overwhelms us, that we really understand what it means. One who was yesterday a friend we do not know if he is going to be a friend tomorrow, and that’s why Atmanirbharta in all manners is necessary. It is also necessary for various other purposes because it is a huge job creator and GDP multiplier. It also gives strategic technology which can be put to use on the civilian side.”
