Friday, June 19, 2015

The problem faced by government in the defence sector

The problem faced by government in the defence sector can be summarized as below :-
1. The woes of the DRDO:
--the research and manufacturing capabilities of the DRDO are embarrassingly poor .
-- saddled by the problem of utterly slow bureaucracy and inordinate delays in decision making and progress of critical defence research programmes .
-- it is facing huge shortage of skilled manpower and infrastructure such as advance labs .
2.Slow and un-moving acquisition process : the defence acquistion process of critical millitary hardware has been
--distressingly slow and unresponsive to the need of the time ,locked motionless at the bureaucratic level in the defence ministry,worsened further by delayed supply of ordered military equipment and escalating costs than estimated before .
--no proper structure in India’s acquisition hierarchy that ‘owns’ the acquisition process.There are gaps in targets, responsibility and accountability.
3.the diplomatic efforts so far have been unable to persuade countries like the U.S to share and sell their cutting -edge technology.The upper cap of 49% in FDI in defence sector has been unable to generate sufficient enthusiasm and interest among major foreign defence players to share their technological knowhow .
4.lack of properly framed defence policy and likely hurdles in acquisition of land for defence purposes further complicates the problem.
Steps that needs to be taken:-
a)focusing more on indigenous defence technology development by appropriate funding of researches and hiring skilled manpower by DRDO and other state and private owned entities in defence .
b) the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) has to be urgently revamped to cut the bureaucratic steps to a bare minimum.
c)India’s acquisition process must become the enabler of an indigenous defence manufacturing base that delivers on quality, timeliness and capacity.
d)creating a structure that owns the acquisition process and has officers of all departments influencing defence indigenisation and must work under one head, who will oversee the process of drafting policy and implementation.

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