Amit Cowshish is a former Financial Advisor (Acquisition), Ministry of Defence and former Consultant, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. Click here for Detailed Profile
The GFR 2017 permit individual ministries to issue detailed instructions to address the needs and complexities of procurement carried out by them. The question is whether those principles and rules come in the way of the Ministry of Defence evolving a more efficient procurement procedure that meets the armed forces’ aspirations.
More than seven decades after Pakistan’s creation, Mohammad Ali Jinnah continues to captivate both his critics and admirers. While the former excoriate him for exploiting religion to achieve his goal, the latter hail him as the Qaid-e-Azam (Great Leader) who single-handedly secured a homeland for the Muslims of British India.
If existing procurement procedures are a hindrance in acquiring state-of-the-art defence materiel expeditiously, a case needs to be made out, based on demonstrable drawbacks of the existing system for a detailed blueprint of what system should replace it.
Defence of India is a multi-dimensional responsibility involving coordination with not only organisations within MoD, but also several external departments and agencies. Irrespective of whether the subject of defence of India is assigned to DoD or DMA, it is the defence minister who is responsible for the subjects allocated to the ministry.
There is a need to formulate a composite policy that focuses on indigenisation in high priority technology areas, shedding the notion that it must necessarily result in savings. A more modest and focussed mission-mode approach to indigenisation can produce better results.
The Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP 2020), which supersedes the Defence Procurement Procedure 2016 (DPP 2016), is a sincere effort by the Ministry of Defence to improve the capital procurement procedure.
The OCPP is a mix of revenue and capital procurement procedures, based on the Defence Procurement Manual 2006. It could have been an opportunity to lay down a more self-contained procedure.
Raising the FDI limit by itself may not enthuse the foreign investors as per the expectations. To make the defence sector more attractive for foreign investment, a whole lot of other related issues will have to be addressed by the government.
It would be helpful if MoD issues a formal order addressing the concerns expressed by various stakeholders about certain aspects of the negative list, especially its impact on projects that involve foreign OEMs and the purpose of bifurcating the capital budget.
The changes proposed in the offset guidelines require a fresh look, both on conceptual and empirical grounds, as the new regime is likely to yield diminishing returns.
Public Procurement Framework in India
The GFR 2017 permit individual ministries to issue detailed instructions to address the needs and complexities of procurement carried out by them. The question is whether those principles and rules come in the way of the Ministry of Defence evolving a more efficient procurement procedure that meets the armed forces’ aspirations.