Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'India should indigenously manufacture weapons' that was published in India

India should indigenously manufacture weapons

India must go for indigenously made arms and give defence manufacturing a ‘Make in India’ fillip. India is an emerging defence manufacturing hub in the world. India is an exporter of defence systems and components. India is the world’s top importer of arms but does not figure among the top 25 exporters of arms.

India accounted for 12 per cent of total global arms imports during 2013-17. About 62 cent of India’s arms imports in 2013-17 originated in Russia, 15 per cent in the US and 11 per cent in Israel. India’s imports from the US jumped 557 per cent between 2008-12 and 2013-17.

India spends a third of its defence budget on capital acquisitions and about 60 per cent of the defence related requirement is met through imports.

India’s public-sector enterprises such as Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) have comprehensively demonstrated technological mettle in producing high quality equipment required for the country’s defence. Tejas, the light combat aircraft designed and developed by the Aeronautical Development Agency in partnership with HAL, is one such example. India’s public-sector shipyards such as Mazagaon Dock Shipbuilders and Hindustan Shipyard among others have demonstrated their ability to design and build naval vessel and submarines. India is one of the few nations with capabilities to design and build warships and one of the few countries that can manufacture Scorpene class submarines. The country also has capacity to build tanks, guns, rockets and missiles. Essentially, India has the capacity to indigenously manufacture much of the equipment it needs.

China has emerged the fifth largest exporter of arms, accounting for 4.6 per cent of the global arms export market. India too can become a defence manufacturing powerhouse. The government needs to demonstrate its willingness to rely on India-made defence manufactures.