Maj. Gen. Mrinal Suman (retd)

Competition is considered to be the bedrock of efficiency and progress. In fact, competition is the prime mover for human advancement. As only the fittest can survive in a competitive environment, all aspirants have to continuously strive to excel by exploring innovative ways to do business. Innovation means ‘doing things in a newer and better way’. Innovation implies an active and exploratory drive that seeks to better existing products, processes (including services) and procedures for more effective results. Sustained generation of newer ideas, views, concepts and solutions is a key requirement for growth. Therefore, competition is a fundamental and indispensable catalyst to progress. Any country that neglects competition and innovations is bound to become a laggard.

Conversely, lack of competition results in monopoly which, in turn, breeds complacency. Without any threat to survival, there is no incentive or compulsion to improve. Everyone lets the matters drift and the status quo continues. Thus, neglect of competition results in stagnation, languishment and decay. That is the reason that all developed countries undertake concerted measures to promote competition and have enacted strict anti-monopoly laws. Neglect of competition discourages innovations. In the case of defence systems, innovations acquire added criticality due to rapid obsolescence of defence technologies.

The Indian government has been repeatedly stating that one of the objectives of the defence procurement procedure (DPP) is ‘to demonstrate the highest degree of probity and public accountability, transparency in operations, free competition and impartiality’. Unfortunately, the position in actual practice is totally different. With a vast domain of 39 Ordnance Factories and nine Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs), the public sector straddles across the complete gamut of defence manufacturing activities with strangulating monopoly. The private sector is kept at bay through various subterfuges as it is considered to be a threat to its survival.

The public sector dreads competition. It seeks orders by nomination and not through open competition. It wants the present dispensation to continue where it treats the Indian armed forces as its captive customers, forcing it to buy what it produces; quality, cost and delivery schedule notwithstanding. That is the root cause for its well-known inefficiency and failure to upgrade its skills for better productivity. As a result, the state of Indian defence industry is miserable even after seven decades of Independence. All major procurements continue to be from the public sector units through nomination. Free competition remains consigned to small value purchases like bullet-proof jackets and bino