This programme was a sincere effort by the MoD to walk the talk on participation of the private industry in defence manufacturing. The success or failure of this programme will have a long lasting effect on MoD’s efforts to strengthen the defence industrial base in the country.

The avro replacement is not a design and development programme which will involve extensive use of the airfields for test flights. It is an aircraft that is already flying and will be built as per the OEM’s specifications that will go into manufacture of the aircraft in India.

The Office Memorandum has created a debate among various stakeholders, particularly the Indian IT and software-related companies which see a loss of business to the tune of $10 billion.

The MoD is possibly of the view that allowing foreign companies to set up manufacturing and assembling facilities in India will stymie the growth of indigenous design and development activities.

The objective of the TPCR is to give an opportunity to the Indian industry to draw up business plans for developing technologies which could be transformed into capabilities required by the armed forces.

Most developed economies are already feeling threatened by increasing equity investments sponsored by foreign government-owned and/ or foreign government-controlled entities in the defence and high-tech industries. A coordinated government response for supervision of foreign investments will emerge on the horizon sooner than later.

Like many other developing counties, Brazil also believes in self-reliance in arms manufacturing and has articulated comprehensive national defence policy with a strong support of its armed forces. There could possibly be some lessons for India.

By now making software development ineligible for discharge of offsets we might be depriving ourselves of what was considered necessary only a couple of months ago. This could also prove to be a setback for the Indian software industry.