While taking stock of the acquisition proposals and projects is critical for bringing in efficiency in defence procurements, the focus on statistics dissembles some important issues.
Sustaining and building defence capabilty is a continuous process. It requires both adequate budget allocations and full, efficient and judicous utilisation of the allocated budget. This does not appear to have happened in the immediate past and the trend appears to continue in the current year.
The Defence Acquisition Council has decided to introduce a new category of Indian Designed, Developed and Manufactured equipment. This will be the most preferred category, ahead of ‘Buy (Indian)’, which presently occupies the pride of place.
The issues confronting the defence establishment at the beginning of the year broadly related to defence policy, human resource management and operational preparedness.
India’s defence modernisation presents enormous opportunities for the Japanese defence industry, which until recently concentrated exclusively on the domestic market in order to demonstrate Japan’s commitment to peace.
The MoD Order mentions that the IFAs are expected to give due attention to macro- management issues, highlighting the need for them to be involved in the planning and plan-review process. These are laudable objectives, but a well-knit mechanism for their implementation does not seem to exist at present.
The MoD guidelines on handling of complaints do not seem to be free from potentially crippling afflictions. Conceptual ambiguity can easily defeat the purpose of the guidelines.
There are no laid down procedures for procurement of technology per se. Existing procedures relate to procurement of equipment, weapons systems, platforms and other tangible capabilities.
The 19th August amendment to the Defence Procurement Procedure of 2013 extends the provision of exchange rate variation to Indian vendors under all the procurement categories of capital acquisition.
Nurturing Capital Acquisitions
While taking stock of the acquisition proposals and projects is critical for bringing in efficiency in defence procurements, the focus on statistics dissembles some important issues.