Towards Self Reliance

Smruti D

During the presentation of the Union Budget 2018-19, then finance minister Arun Jaitley announced the setting up of two industrial corridors. The idea behind this was to boost the production in defence sector in both private and public sectors by encouraging investments and roping in small and medium scale vendors to contribute in production of defence armaments.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh, UP CM Yogi Adityanath along with defence secretary
 Ajay Kumar at Bandhan ceremony during DefExpo 2020

Even as the government has unveiled policies and invested in producing defence equipment in the country, India has ranked as the second largest arms importer (only after Saudi Arabia) during 2015-2019 as per the Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI). India made largest number of exports to countries such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Mauritius, securing the 23^rd position in the top 25 arms exporters. While India’s imports from Russia and the US reduced, those from Israel and France increased.

There were complaints about the earlier policies launched under ‘Make in India’ such as the private companies were not given an equal chance at bidding and denied a level-playing field against the state-owned manufacturers. Slow decision making on part of the government was another issue pointed out by critics. While foreign procurements remained high, the transfer of technology under the Strategic Partnership Model (SPM) has failed to take place. This was in contrast with the government’s ambitions of taking India’s GDP growth to 25 per cent in 2025.

Spokesperson of ministry of defence, A. Bharat Bhushan Babu, says, “State and Central governments are playing different roles in the defence corridors. Central government will be soon bringing out a defence production and export promotio