Nine proposed foreign arms deals worth £4.67 billion have been scrapped in pursuit of the “Make in India” policy, while expenditure on procurement from abroad has reduced from 46% to 36% in the last three years, the defence minister told Parliament.
In pursuance of the mandate given in the “Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan” for indigenisation of defence production, the nine proposals earlier accorded ‘acceptance of necessity (AoN)’ under the ‘Buy (Global)’ category of capital acquisitions have been cancelled after a review by the Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC), junior defence minister Ajay Bhatt said in a written reply.
The scrapped deals, which had got AoNs but were yet to be inked, include helicopters, short-range surface-to-air missiles and some vehicles after the armed forces were directed to prepare lists of their proposed foreign procurements. “The government has taken several policy initiatives in the past few years under the Make in India programme and brought in reforms to encourage indigenous design, development and manufacture of defence equipment in the country, including design and development of projects like Kamov-31 (Russian naval helicopters),” Bhatt said. Replying to another question, the minister said the expenditure on defence procurement from foreign sources has reduced from 46% to 36%, thereby reducing the import burden, from 2018-19 to 2020-21.
The wide-ranging US-led western sanctions against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine has once again underscored this. India is facing the challenge of maintaining high operational military readiness because almost 70% of its defence hardware and software is of Soviet or Russian-origin, which require a regular supply of spares as well as maintenance.
