Naik bats for Space,Air Defence Command

“Formation of a Space Command or an Air Defence (AD) Command is the need of the hour. While the Space command can be allocated to one of the three services as per requirements,the AD command can be a tri-services (formation) headed by the IAF,” he said adding,“We need national will to bring about these changes. The policy makers must understand that the government as well as the services are stakeholders of national security.”

Naik also touched upon various aspects of aerospace power — the military aspect of aerospace basis capability,vision and the future of the concept. “We must have a comprehensive,well spelt out national policy. Various processes need to be institutionalised to avoid person-specific reversals. There needs to be a significant change in the mindset of policy makers. Lastly,the human resources angle,which is the most important aspect needs to be kept in mind and for this we need more training institutions. Retaining trained pool of manpower is as important as technology development,” he said.

“India is likely to spend $235 billion in the next decade on acquisition of defence systems,Naik said. Thirty per cent offset equals to $80 billion — but we must ask ourselves if we are in a position to absorb offsets,” he said. “The definition of offsets should also be broader. While the (acquisition) process needs to be accelerated,it must also be understood that offsets do not give leading edge technology,” he said stressing on the need of making Transfer of Technology (ToT) an important aspect of acquisitions.

He added that DRDO should be made more accountable for time and cost overruns.“Private sector needs to be encouraged and a prolonged commitment (from the government) is required for the same.” Pressing that aerospace power is the power of the future,Naik further added,“Currently,we are at the cusp of our capabilities and the ramp up is likely to start only by 2015. We therefore have a window and must use it.”

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