The complexity and interconnection of global supply chains has heightened the realisation of the need for supply chain resilience and self-reliance in production.

Dassault and Boeing have been aggressively pitching their excellent products to fulfil India’s naval fighter aircraft requirements.

The defence indigenisation lists are expected to promote domestic arms manufacturing and reduce the burden of arms imports.

Given that the Department of Expenditure will henceforth be the nodal department for issuing procurement related instructions in future, the Ministry of Defence must institute a system to promptly incorporate them in the MoD procurement manuals.

The success of the co-development-cum-production push in Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 would depend on the commercial viability of the co-developed product, apart from overcoming a host of conceptual and procedural challenges.

Defence procurement in India needs to adopt a mix of procurement avenues in which the indigenous solutions, foreign equipment and futuristic R&D continue together in a balanced manner. Considering that piecemeal solutions are not effective in the long term, there is a need to adopt a ‘Systems Approach’ to come up with a holistic solution which is enduring and progressive.