Self-reliance in manufacturing of defence fighter aircrafts through PPP Model

Abstract

Why Defence Self Reliance? Defence is utmost important for any country. The economic, social and technological developments are possible when its borders are secured from external threats from enemies. To ensure national security, the country shall have strong armed forces with its own superior arms and defence equipments. The recent wars that occurred in world have demonstrated that 21st century wars belong air power and its superiority, simply because of its speed of response, long reach, precision targeting capabilities, can transport required resources to wherever required and agility and adaptability to the changing situations. It is therefore the fighter aircrafts; their technical superiority and preparedness will pay a decisive role in war like situations. India came out of colonial ruling and emerged as an independent nation in 1947 simultaneously with the enemies sharing its border. It was the highest strategic important for government to protect its borders and it had realised the fundamentals of achieving self-reliance in defence equipment, arms and ammunitions and their technological advancement or superiority over its enemies. With this doctrine, government of India has taken the charge of developing the defence industry through state owned defence public sectors (DPSUs) given the limited entrepreneurial base & scare capital. Since then, Indian Govt is constantly emphasising of self-reliance in defence manufacturing and initiated several policy initiatives such as amendments to Industrial Policies to open defence production to private industries to bring the competitive atmosphere. In support of such a policy initiative government has brought additional policy measures such as amendments to Defence Procurement Procedures (DPP), FDI policy, Offset policy, strategic partnership and latest being Make in India drive. Despite so many policy measures private industry is not pitching in the manufacturing of defence fighter or helicopters. India still depends on the imported arms, ammunitions and defence equipments like fighter planes and submarines. This raises a serious concern over the aspirations to develop self-reliant defence manufacturing including public and private. In addition to these problems, the increased border tensions with both countries, enemies joining hands together in development of advanced fighter planes and arms, China’s aspirations to become global power, depleting IAF’s squadrons, repeated failures of tender based buying have further aggravated concerns. It is, therefore need of hour to build synergy between armed forces, public and private sectors in defence aerospace sector. It is also important to develop innovative ways to encourage & increase the participation of academic institutions, small entrepreneurs, start-ups and industry in defence research and development activities and defence manufacturing. In the given context, the policy paper approaches to analyse the defence aerospace industry ecosystem as whole focusing on fighter aircrafts development & manufacturing, on the following five aspects and propose the alternative policy measures to overcome current scenario of self- reliance.