The Occasional Paper examines India's defence innovation performance, especially of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the defence industry. The paper argues that the innovation performance of these two players is constrained by lack of a higher organisational structure which could provide direction and required thrust to the indigenous R&D.
It is necessary to evolve a long term strategy keeping in mind all the aircraft acquisition programmes, review the factors that contribute to determining the right numbers and begin the process of building a long term partnership with the private industry.
Replacement of the Avro is an approved requirement. Scrapping the on-going process could delay acquisition of the transport aircraft by at least a year or two as it would inevitably involve revisiting the qualitative requirements (QRs) before restarting the tendering process.
For the mantra to become an all-pervasive reality in defence acquisitions in India will be to multiply manifold the onset, frequency, range and depthof its industry engagements.
There is no single agency in MoD to deal with these issues holistically. Generally, matters related to administrative powers are processed separately for each service by the administrative wings concerned with little concern for commonality.
Widespread problems have made the operating environment ‘dysfunctional and inefficient’. Some of this is on account of inscrutable issues like ‘integration of the services with the MoD’ or ‘civil-military relations’ but, in large part, the immediate problem lies with MoD’s inability to resolve more mundane issues.
his Issue Brief examines certain provisions relating to intellectual property rights and transfer of technology in India’s defence procurement procedures, together with suggestions on streamlining the same for achieving enhanced procurement efficiencies in capital acquisitions.
The national aim should be to make India a design, development, manufacture and export hub. India must study the Chinese concepts of “leap frogging” of technology across several generations and “civilianisation” to exploit dual use technology.
While the government is widely seen as investor-friendly, investment decisions, however, are made on more tangible considerations – ease of doing business, security of investment and intellectual property rights, and returns on investment.
