A Complete News Magazine on National Security

The Bofors deal has come to be considered as a land mark case in Indian defence imports. Now, every major defence contract comes under the close scrutiny of the media and the vigilance authorities. Allegations of irregularities in the procurements carried out during the Kargil War have further damaged the credibility of the Indian defence procurement regime. The environment appears convinced that all defence deals are invariably tainted and strives hard to spot infirmities. It has made the defence procurement regime totally dysfunctional and stalled modernisation of the defence forces. Functionaries have become wary of taking decisions lest they be accused of indiscretion and injudicious behaviour at a subsequent date. The end result is that the defence forces remain deprived of modern weaponry while the allocated funds lapse.

The Indian procurement system is hamstrung by two major constraints. First, most of the sophisticated equipment has to be imported as the indigenous defence industry is still in a nascent stage. There are a limited number of producers in the world market and very few are ready to part with their ‘top of the line’ products. The problem gets compounded where technology transfer is sought as an essential part of the package. In such a scenario, India has limited negotiating space and the foreign vendors dictate terms. Additionally, there are strong political and corporate lobbies at work to push their products.

Secondly, a fine balance has to be maintained between need for generating competition and security imperatives. A certain degree of secrecy has to be maintained and this gives rise to propagation of half-truths and subjective disinformation. The government’s inability to share complete information is construed as an attempt to hide skeletons. The whole procurement process becomes vulnerable to derailment as no government wants to be seen negotiating a contentious deal.

All expert committees including the Kelkar Committee have concentrated only on reforms in structures and procedures. Even perfect structures and procedures are of no consequence unless the functionaries who operate the mechanism are able to deliver. A dispassionate and objective study would have revealed that the current state of sluggishness is primarily due to the inability of the procurement functionaries to perform due to their lack of expertise and sense of inadequacy. No procurements can materialise unless the acquisition staff takes timely decisions. Unfortunately, decision making is totally absent at present.

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