SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024
Since last nine years, Make in India and Atma Nirbhar Bharat have become the buzz words under the Modi government. The idea has been to achieve self sufficiency in the country’s manufacturing sector, especially in defence.
The idea is excellent, considering that India’s maximum foreign exchange is drained out in importing crude oil and weapon systems. The volatile international geo-political situations create further problems in importing crucial defence platforms, like in the case of Russia-Ukraine conflict.
In this scenario, India embarked on a journey to promote indigenisation in defence production on a warfooting. It’s not that India never produced anything before. Be it the ballistic missiles, assault rifles and warships, these have been made in India before. But now, it has become a part of government policy to promote self sufficiency in defence manufacturing.
The biggest example of Make in India’s success story perhaps is its first ever Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC-1) - Vikrant. Designed by Indian Navy's in-house Warship Design Bureau (WDB) and built by Cochin Shipyard Limited, Vikrant has been built with state-of-the-art features and is the largest ship ever built in India.
Named after its illustrious namesake predecessor, the commissioning of IAC-1 INS Vikrant will catapult India to a select club of the world’s great naval powers. With the IAC Vikrant, India has joined an elite group of countries with the specialised capacity to design and construct an aircraft carrier domestically, including USA, UK, France, Russia and China. It will strengthen the country’s position as a ‘Blue Water Navy’.
Now, the navy is pushing hard for IAC-2 to be a 65,000-tonne, flat deck carrier that is designed and built in India, with technical and tactical consultation from the US navy.
While the efforts taken in building the IAC-1 Vikrant is indeed a commendable effort, there are also weaknesses in our Atma Nirbhar Bharat programme in our defence sector that need to be addressed.
It is important to note that 76 percent of Vikrant’s overall ‘float’ content was indigenously procured. But at the same time, nearly 70 percent of its ‘fight’ and ‘move’ components are imported, which dents the euphoria around indigenous development.
Fighters and choppers along with the missiles form the core of the ‘fight’ component of the aircraft carrier. The fighter jets that would be initially stationed on the Vikrant would be Russian MiG-29K/KUB fighters and Kamov Ka-31 ‘Helix’ early warning and control (AEW&C) helicopters and Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky MH-60R multi-role rotary craft.
Reports suggest that the navy has gone for France’s Rafale (M) fighters, which will replace the MiG-29Ks. All these are imported weapon systems, which only further add to the overall cost of this defence platform.
Now let’s look at the ‘move’ component, which is also imported. Vikrant is powered by four General Electric (GE) LM-2500 gas turbines from the US. For the Make in India programme to really make an impact, indigenous engine development has to be the key – be it for the navy or the air force. This will need a lot of funding from the government.
India has traditionally struggled in this sector. The Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), the public sector enterprise, the nodal agency for developing gas turbine engines for military applications, was formed in 1959. However, its performance had in the 1960s, it failed to improve the Orpheus engine to up-power the HF-24 Marut, and since then, has shelved the original programme to produce Kaveri, an engine for the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), which is now powered by a GE engine.
Also, excess focus on Make in India for defence production could have its negative effects. The country’s tri-services haven’t been able to import critical weapon systems to replace the old ones. India is still far away from becoming 100 percent self-reliant.
The Bloomberg in a report has stated that too much emphasis on Make in India programme is leaving India critically short of important weapon platforms, which include helicopters and fighter jets. The loss of India’s aging aircrafts and its brave pilots to air crashes has made the situation even worse.
The Indian Air Force is currently down to just 31 fighter squadrons when the authorised strength to tackle the dual threat of China and Pakistan 42 squadrons. It will take a lot of time and effort for India to fill this gap, which is not going to be possible with the Make in India programme alone. India has to maintain a balance between self-sufficiency through indigenous production and imports.
It is vital that Indian government focuses on the boosting indigenous manufacturing in key areas like fighter jet and ship jet engine development along with semi-conductors. It has to pump in more money for R&D, without compromising on the quality.
So, the shrill regarding Make in India should be toned down and focus on the real shortcomings.
