We want to fight next war with technology, says army chief

Poser to industry: can you give us what we need

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat called upon the industry to respond to problems faced by the defence forces in terms of adoption of new technology to counter wars. “Can you give us what we need?” he asked, releasing the second volume of ‘Compendium of Problem Statements,’ which has been prepared by the Army Design Bureau (ADB) after a detailed interaction with all stakeholders, including soldiers deployed in the field. The army chief asked the industry and the academia to align technology solutions to the stated problems.

“We want to fight the next war with technology on our side and not like the past,” he said. Pointing to the drawbacks in trial equipment, Gen Rawat asked the industry and academia to focus on the fact that the Indian Army will fight its wars in varied terrain and weather conditions. He nudged them to come up with “robust, rugged, miniaturised yet technologically compatible solutions”.

Since the launch of the Make in India initiative in 2014, several measures have been taken by the government to promote indigenous design, development and manufacture of defence and aerospace equipment in the country by harnessing the capabilities of the public and private sectors.

The Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) was revised and brought into effect from April 2016. A new category of procurement — Buy Indian-IDDM (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured) — has been introduced in DPP 2016, which has been accorded the topmost priority for the procurement of capital equipment. Besides this, preference has been accorded to ‘Buy (Indian)’ and ‘Buy and Make (Indian)’ categories of capital acquisition over ‘Buy (Global)’ and ‘Buy and Make (Global)’ categories, according to a defence ministry official.

The ‘Make’ procedure has been simplified with provisions for funding 90% of the development cost by the government for the Indian industry and reserving projects not exceeding development cost of Rs 10 crore (government-funded) and Rs 3 crore (industry-funded) for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. Under the revised policy, Foreign Direct Investment up to 49% is allowed through automatic route and beyond 49% under government approval route wherever it is likely to result in access to modern technology.