With the economy is in free fall, atmanirbhar — self reliance — has become a buzzword in the country. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh took the Atmanirbhar Bharat scheme to the defence sector with his announcement on Sunday that India would stop imports of 101 weapons and platforms.
The moratorium on the selected defence imports begins in December this year and will continue for five years. The objective is to bolster the domestic defence sector, which showed some progress in the last financial year despite an indifferent outcome of big Make in India projects.
Under the atmanirbhar defence campaign, the government will focus on manufacturing of sniper rifles, towed artillery guns, surface to air missiles, ship-borne cruise missiles, howitzers, bullet-proof jackets, radar warning receivers, transport aircraft, light combat aircraft and helicopters, and submarines among others.
Some of the items listed to be embargoed are already being manufactured in India. Howitzers and submarines are made in India. INS Shalki, a diesel-electric submarine was launched by Rajiv Gandhi in 1987 and commissioned in the Navy in 1992.
Additionally, India has indigenously built nuclear-powered submarines such as the INS Arihant. The submarine was made in collaboration with Russia. Still, the atmanirbhar move in the defence sector is estimated to save foreign currency reserve worth about Rs 4 lakh crore.
So far so good. But the defence sector India needs to improve vastly on two counts urgently — timely completion of projects and satisfactory quality.
According to a SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) report, released days before the government imposed a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic in March, India for the first time emerged as a global exporter of arms. Its entry to the list was modest at the 23rd position.
However, the real problem has been delays in completion of projects. For example, the Mazgaon Docks is building six Scorpene-class submarines in collaboration with the French Naval Group as part of Project-75. But only two — INS Kalvari and INS Khanderi — have been delivered. The rest were expected to be delivered this year but are stated to be running way behind the schedule.
Several Make in India projects have been stuck for more than five-six years. Some of these include an India-Russia joint venture for making 200 units of light utility Kamov-226T helicopters for the Army and Air Force, 111 units of naval utility helicopters, diesel-electric stealth submarines and also manufacturing 114 fighter jets for which approval was given in 2018.
Besides delay, quality of the products has been under question. In 2019 itself, the Army red-flagged quality issues with the ammunition supplied by Ordnance Factory Board. The ammunition was stated to be damaging tanks, field guns and causing fatalities. The soldiers, at one point, were asked to buy their own boots and uniforms due to substandard quality of products supplied by the defence ministry.
The quality of manufacturing at Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) has been a subject of intense debate during Rafale deal controversy. Dassault — the French company that makes the Rafale — had reportedly expressed its lack of confidence in the manufacturing quality of the HAL when the defence deal was being negotiated during the UPA rule.
“We have made concessions for HAL, but will the enemy make any concession for us when we face them in battle?” then Air Force chief BS Dhanoa at an event in Delhi was quoted as asking in 2019. His comments had come days after an HAL-made Jaguar crashed in Uttar Pradesh. Ironically, a day after he made the remark, another HAL-made fighter jet — a Mirage-2000 — crashed in Karnataka killing two squadron leaders.