The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by Hon’ble Defence Minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, met on 25 Aug 2018 and accorded approval for procurement for the Services amounting to approximately Rs. 46,000 crores.
On August 30, L&T, India’s leading engineering conglomerate, delivered the second of the seven Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV), ahead of the schedule, to the Indian Coast Guard, Company said in a statement.
India is planning to acquire National Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS) from the United States. Reportedly, the system will provide protection to Indian capital against a range of threats from aircraft to drones to cruise missiles. Indian capital will be the world’s third capital, after the US’ Washington DC protected by NASAMS II and Moscow by Buk missile system, to have such an air defence shield.
Russian bases in Syria came under the wave of armed drone attacks in January 2018. The targets were Russian air and naval bases. It is a new wave of terror strikes on military installations. The drones were locally assembled with a GPS guidance system to control and direct these drones to the desired targets. The technology is available and drones can be manufactured with local resources that could either have pre-fed target coordinates or can be remotely controlled so that these drones can also be maneuvered to avoid detection by radars.
India, though one of the largest economies, has a dubious distinction of being one of the largest importers of the weapon systems of the world. India, also, has been trying to boost its own arms industry through Offset obligations imposed on its foreign suppliers. There have been several panels, task forces and think tank sessions that fine-tuned Defence Procurement Procedures (DPP) to leverage our advantageous position as a buyer to seed technologies within the country. These initiatives have generally failed to achieve the desired objective of self-reliance.
In the Budget Speech 2018, Government has announced that it will bring out an industry friendly Defence Production Policy 2018 to promote domestic production by public sector, private sector and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Consequent to this, a draft Defence Production Policy 2018 has been prepared which provides a focused, structured and significant thrust to development of defence design and production capabilities in the country. The draft policy has been shared with all concerned stakeholders for their views before notification.
For production of Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has got orders from Indian Air Force (IAF) for 40 aircrafts {20 Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) standard and 20 Final Operational Clearance (FOC) standard}. 20 IOC contract was signed on 31st March 2006 to be completed by December 2011 and 20 FOC contract was signed on 23rd December 2010 to be completed by 2016. IOC for LCA Tejas was received in December, 2013.
Indian Air Force (IAF) has restarted its two decades old quest for replacement of decades-old Russian fighter jets through a competitive tender. IAF is still relying on the Russian single engine MiG-21s and twin-engine MiG-27s. These aircraft are still part of the IAF’s inventory even when most of the air forces have retired them. This is only because IAF has not been able to replace them.
