With the powerful DPC in place and the NSA assuming the role of de facto CDS for all practical purposes other than in operational matters, the defence planning process is expected to become more rational and provide a boost to defence preparedness.
Objectives and resources have to be in sync with each other and if adequate resources cannot be provided objectives have to be suitably recalibrated and alternative ways found to achieve them.
The challenge lies in demonstrating to potential importers that India, currently the world’s largest arms importer, has the capacity to manufacture and export the equipment required by their armed forces.
The Draft Defence Production Policy 2018, which aims to promote the Make in India initiative in the defence sector and create a world-class arms manufacturing base, faces a number of challenges, which, if left unaddressed, may limit its usefulness.
The promises contained in the recently released draft are so intertwined that a comprehensive action plan would be required to implement all of them almost simultaneously for achieving the policy objective.
The new system of classifying enterprises based on annual turnover will be more reliable, transparent and objective as the qualifying criteria will be verifiable with reference to the data available in the Goods and Services Tax network.
This Issue Brief highlights five major issues and concerns that may merit the SCoD’s attention while examining the latest Demands for Grants of the Ministry of Defence.
The government decided to do away with the five year planning process in 2014. Therefore, there is no 13th plan. Despite this, MoD has gone ahead and formulated the 13th five year plan and submitted it to MoF for information only. Thus, the dilemma of defence planning and budget continues.
Innovative ways will have to be examined and existing systems, practices and procedures need to be questioned for finding optimum solutions to relieve budget stress.
Creation of Defence Planning Committee: A Step towards Credible Defence Preparedness
With the powerful DPC in place and the NSA assuming the role of de facto CDS for all practical purposes other than in operational matters, the defence planning process is expected to become more rational and provide a boost to defence preparedness.