By Sandeep Verma
Domestic manufacturing of defence gear has lengthy been India’s essential policy ambition and her enigmatic Prime Minister, in no uncertain terms and in his personal impeccable style of unpacking complicated national troubles utilizing down-to-earth phraseology, has offered a clarion contact to India’s defence establishment to take forward his vision for ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and to introduce considerably-necessary procurement efficiency.
The 1st element of his mantra—atmanirbharta—is about strengthening India’s defence industrial base although the second element—infusing efficiency in procurement and shortening defence acquisition cycles to a two-year period at best—is completely harmonised with his all round decisive style of political leadership: finding tomorrow’s work performed, today! Within this context, it may perhaps be beneficial to examine some of the roadblocks that may perhaps require to be overcome as India’s defence stakeholders, in distinct MoD’s karmayogis, lead the way, utilizing defence acquisition reforms as a automobile for India’s financial revival.
Civilian-style procurement reforms in defence
Under-knowledgeable stakeholders worldwide can from time to time make mountains out of molehills in their examination of precise defence instances, forgetting in their enthusiasm that defence acquisition faces specific one of a kind and inherent challenges not ordinarily noticed in typical civilian spaces. For one, defence procurement wants to be undertaken in a manner that does not completely disclose a nation’s capabilities to its adversaries, producing civilian-style transparency fundamentally not possible. Two, defence gear and platforms require to match in with not only domestic war methods and legacy structures, but also regional defence cooperation networks, producing civilian-style competitors also practically impractical to accomplish.
Three, defence manufacturing worldwide is hugely concentrated inside a little set of sellers and systems integrators, requiring a continuous concentrate on contract negotiation at all stages, providing an completely new which means to ‘arms-twisting’ in defence procurement—a practice that is traditionally frowned upon although producing civil purchases. Four, defence acquisition is more about acquisition of lengthy-term war-fighting capabilities, producing it inherently more protracted and requiring far higher flexibility due to the fact some of what is at some point acquired is capability that is nonetheless below R&D at the time of the RfP: more akin to ‘prototype’ acquisition as compared to civilian procurement of industrial off-the-shelf (COTS) goods and services. As a outcome, defence contracts call for continuous fine-tuning and modifications soon after award of a contract: a practice that is otherwise severely discouraged in civilian procurement.
Fifthly, international consideration simply because of higher-worth nature of defence contracts usually calls for some formal or informal guidance from India’s NSA as also foreign/trade policy-linked adjustments. And final but not the least, professionalising defence procurement calls for keeping an ‘arms-length’ amongst user needs on one hand and user involvement in procurement choice-producing on the other.
This final element is maybe the most sensitive one of all, and for that reason maybe the most difficult one as nicely to navigate, but one that has noticed immensely effective resolution nation-soon after-nation. Witness the professionalisation of defence acquisition in the US exactly where contracting officers are reasonably insulated from military interventions although functioning in a decentralised manner or the DGA’s institution in France with a hugely centralised, integrated and holistic method to its defence acquisition, defence manufacturing and defence exports.
Unique benefits for government procurement in defence
Professionalising national defence procurement institutions and processes also comes bundled with a quantity of secondary consequential benefits, quite a few of which can constructively contribute to the atmanirbharta vision that India’s PM outlined not too long ago. Defence R&D and manufacturing have a tendency to have multiplier effects on the civilian economy—international practical experience shows that quite a few higher-finish defence capabilities and technologies have been frequently turned into effective industrial, worldwide enterprises: an eminently beneficial policy tool presently as all nations attempt to outgrow the adverse impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. This ‘multiplier’ impact is aided by the ‘monopsonic’ nature of defence procurement—the government as the single buyer—implying that national governments can strongly influence technical requirements by which goods and services get manufactured/offered, imported and exported, although continuing to act as ‘nudges’ and staying compliant with their GATT and GATS commitments.
The defence reforms story so far
Defence acquisition reform in India has been a continuous course of action, appropriate from the time of MoD implementing suggestions produced as component of different reports of the Kelkar Committee headed by the eminent Vijay Kelkar but the present regime has noticed a higher quantity of committees set up to rework India’s defence procurement institutions as one of the most significant shakeups in defence acquisition ever attempted: the most notable work obtaining been undertaken in 2016 by a committee headed by MoD’s ex-DG (Acquisition).
As reported in public domain, the Chairman had sound and severe issues with the overly centralised nature of defence acquisition in India: the present method exactly where policy-level troubles and procurement case-level choices have been inextricably mashed up collectively. To that extent, there certainly seem to be robust motives to insulate the political leadership in India’s MoD from day-to-day rule-level adjustments, as nicely as from the nuts and bolts of contract pricing and modifications in person procurement instances.
In addition, irrespective of the type India’s defence acquisition organisation may perhaps at some point take—decentralised choice-producing below centralised policy or otherwise—there is a clear and present require to professionalising India’s defence acquisition workforce. The typical civilian rule imposed by the CVC—constant rotation of procurement officials each and every 3 years, leaving them practically a year and a half at greatest to show any outcomes if at all—needs to be fully modified each in letter and in spirit for the defence sector by inducting and retraining of a experienced cadre of procurement specialists drawn from different arms of the government and elsewhere and then retaining them on precise projects on a considerably more permanent basis than at present for visible and sustainable final results to be noticed by one and all.
Resurrecting India’s defence acquisition organisation
The PM is bang on when emphasising and reemphasising his priority for efficiency in procurement—be it the require for speedy rollout of infrastructure projects or aiming for brief (generally two-year) timelines for defence acquisition processes on an finish-to-finish basis. He has currently place into play an ambitious Karmayogi Yojana (more of a time-bound mission, like most of his policy choices) for upskilling and transforming India’s civil servants into ‘experts’, moving from ‘rules’ to ‘roles’, refocusing from cloudy ‘file notings’ to considerably more genuine ‘outcomes’ and measurable overall performance. Within India’s defence ecosystem also, it is time all stakeholders refocus and realign themselves into producing transformational defence acquisition institutions that are successful, effective and accountable all at when.
The author is an IAS officer and a trainer on public procurement and project management. Views are individual