The truth about Defexpo straight from Bharat Verma, Editor, Indian Defence Review

08 Mar 2010 8ak: Editor of Indian Defence Review, India's most respected defence publication, Bharat Verma, spoke to Manu Sood, on the Def Expo-2010 and the changes required in the MoD set up, besides spelling out reasons as to why the government should look beyond DRDO. (The video is in two parts.

Referring to the Def Expo, Bharat Verma said that even though the event was satisfactorily organised, the dilly dallying over who would actually organise the event, FICCI or CII, had caused a lot of inconvenience to the vendors, especially foreign vendors, who plan their arrival and course of action at least a year in advance. He said that this clearly exhibits the lack of decision making ability in executing an event that has been planned for a year in advance. Not sparing the MoD either, Verma said that a lot of fault lines existed within the ministry and the prevalent babu culture had not helped its case either. 

According to him, due to the non accountable attitude of the bureaucrats, the Indian armed forces, which are bracing to fight a war on a minimum of two fronts, had been left with military hardware that was 75% redundant. Another area where he took on the MoD was their obsession with indigenisation, on the issue he said that in offset programs, the government had prohibited imported technology, calling it a strange policy, Verma said that the need was to have technology whether imported or local, should not be a cause of concern. 

He advocated the cause of private sector and joint ventures saying that a new thrust should be given to encourage them by the government as the DRDO had failed India and the armed forces in a big way. Advocating the cause of increasing the FDI limit in defence, he said, that the fact was that no international company was willing to transfer what we call is key technology to India as 26% was not a lucrative enough figure to attract them. However, if the figure was to be increased to 49%, the international arms companies would willingly come with latest technology as a the hike would create a level playing field for them and the resulting situation would be a win-win one for both the parties. He also said that successful JVs will marginalise tough sanctioned regimes automatically over a period of time.   

Comments

[Vijay]

obsession with indigenisation?

As in the fact that UAE paid 2 billion dollars for getting their F-16's and still don't have the source code for any of it is not important?

All I am saying that the Indian private sector should be allowed to participate on an equal footing with the DPSU's.

DRDO has not failed India it is the Indian govt. selected by the Indian people that has failed India. They have acheived a lot with the shoe-string budget that they work on compared to other countries.And btw, DRDO is not some separate entity in itself it is made up of Indians If DRDO has failed India then Indians have failed india.