Give level playing field to private players in defence production: Ex-Army Chief Malik

Former Army Chief V P Malik on Friday called for a level playing field for the private sector in manufacturing defence equipment. Malik made the remark at a panel discussion on the 'Make in India and the Nation's Security' on the inaugural day of the third edition of annual Military Literature Festival (MLF) here.

"We are not giving level playing field to the private sector. Unless you give level playing to the private sector … they have to be partners, then you will find faster development," Malik said. He laid emphasis on removing any bottlenecks in terms of policy, system or processes meant for defence equipment.

He said unless the country becomes "adequately self-reliant" in defence production, the national security remains "vulnerable." Malik, who was at the helm during the Kargil war, said 'Make in India' or self-reliant was the most important lessons that one had learnt from it.

The former Army Chief said the suppliers of other countries tend to "exploit" the situation. He also cited a few examples of some countries which first promised to deliver required weapons, then later did not deliver or delivered old ammunition.

He said, "You have to have better technology in your weapons and equipment." Malik also said there was hardly any foreign direct investment in defence in the past few years.

Rolling out data, Malik said the FDI in 2014-15 and 2015-16 was USD 0.08 million and 0.10 million respectively. "While in 2016-17, nobody came to bring us technology from abroad," he said, adding that in 2017-18, FDI was USD 0.01 million and in 2018-19, the situation improved a bit with USD 2.18 million.

Malik also stressed on the timeline of the delivery of the arms and ammunition. "Weapons system which had life of 30 or 35 years, today they are redundant after 10 years because of technology. So you have to pitch for timeline along with the technology," he said.

Another speaker, Lt. General Arun Sahni urged for allocating more funds for the upgradation of country's warfare. "We need a more serious approach where accountability is fixed for producing unusable products at the public sector institutions working in the sphere," he said.

The panelists also concurred that India should leverage its advantage of being the largest importer of weapons while dealing with foreign exporters.

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