MAY 2016
Volume 7 issue 8
editor-in-chief The 26/11 has left a scar on India that is indelible. Much like the 1962 border war with China. Both have nothing in common other than the scars that they’ve left behind. One of the murmurs doing the rounds soon after the 26/11 was that the National Security Guard assault team did not have hands free, throat activated or otherwise, communication systems. Which meant that the assault troops could not move, aim or fire, whilst communicating since they were not equipped with such sets. Not that these facts are any great secrets that aren’t available in the market. NSG veterans claim that they’d been asking for such sets, but the convoluted procurement process did not allow that critical request to see the light of the day. If they had had such sets, the assault team casualties might have been reduced. It is simple enough to imagine such a set, but seems an impossible task to see completion of the process. This is because despite many years of independence, India continues to be in the grip of a debilitating and convoluted bureaucratic process when it comes to procurements for the needs of defence and security forces. Procedures cause delays. It is not that the defence and security forces are entirely innocent in the matter. For starters, their headquarters tend to change requirements as frequently as their personnel change. Each Director General, for example, has added his inputs into making the Arjun Main Battle Tank an unviable product. Each seems to want to outdo his predecessor in instilling alterations to the design and the final product. This has made the sealing of design and development an impossible task. When goal posts keep shifting, it becomes impossible for the developing or even the procurement agency from keeping track of requirements. Handwara, in the Kashmir valley, is currently in the news owing to a rumour which got people excited enough to face bullets from riot control police. There is no reason, of course, why a rumour was allowed to gain traction and as a result of which rioting mobs had to be fired on. The moot point is why should security forces be compelled to operate in a perennially riotous environment without sophisticated equipment that can control mobs without using lethal life threatening methods? Security forces, by the sheer weight of their response, add to casualties. Thus, building up greater resentment amongst people. The Defence and security forces don’t help their case by only adding to the armoury, rather by working through a long term vision of what constitutes their entire spectrum of operations. So, India has to deal with the piquant situation of having a myriad of small arms, but little in terms of non-lethal riot control equipment. The Army and the various security forces operating in difficult situations have a variety of arms available, so much that they would be the envy of a developed country. But they haven’t budgeted for other equipment and which could prove just as useful, if not more valuable. For this to happen, the various agencies of the government have to sit together and develop a blueprint for the necessary equipment: lethal and non-lethal. Hands free communication sets are just as important in riot control situations as they are in anti-terrorist assault operations. The qualitative requirements that each service has developed need to be discussed threadbare, to cater for operational requirements as well as being logistically logical. The current scenario has allowed the services to place demands for all kinds of arms, thus complicating the logistics chain to unmanageable levels. This has to be simplified first. Deficiencies exist because the management of budgets is skewed in favour of the big ticket item rather than what is urgently needed. That can only be rectified once the entire scale of operations is analysed, involving all the concerned services. Keeping it simple helps in the long term, since it is easier to manage budgets jointly rather than singly. And then, it also compels a recalcitrant bureaucracy from opposing or delaying for the sake of it. The bureaucracy finds holes in proposals because they exist. The best option is to not let them exist in the first place. For that the various services have to sit together and plug the gaps.
Manvendra Singh May 2016
Defence AND security alert
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publisher’s view
Defence Is Not FUN
An ISO 9001:2008 Certified Magazine
Volume 7 | Issue 8 | May 2016 Chairman Shyam Sunder Publisher and ceo Pawan Agrawal President Urvashi J Agrawal Director Shishir Bhushan Editorial Editor-in-Chief Manvendra Singh Assistant Editor Diana Mehra Assistant Editor Nikita Jain Corporate Communication Mamta Jain Natasha Sales Anup Kumar Sinha Creative Alka Sharma Rohit Saini Representative (J&K) Salil Sharma Correspondent (Europe) Dominika Cosic Production Dilshad and Dabeer Webmaster Sundar Rawat IT Operations Ankit Kumar Photographer Subhash Circulation and Distribution Ashok Gupta E-mail: (first name)@dsalert.org info: info@dsalert.org articles: articles@dsalert.org subscription: subscription@dsalert.org online edition: online@dsalert.org advertisement: advt@dsalert.org Editorial and Corporate Office Prabhat Prakashan Tower 4/19, Asaf Ali Road New Delhi-110002 (India) +91-011-23243999, 23287999, 9958382999 info@dsalert.org | www.dsalert.org Disclaimer All rights reserved. Reproduction and translation in any language in whole or in part by any means without permission from Defence and Security Alert is prohibited. Opinions expressed are those of the individual writers and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher and/or editors. All disputes are subject to jurisdiction of Delhi Courts. Defence and Security Alert is printed, published and owned by Pawan Agrawal and printed at Graphic World, 1686, Kucha Dakhini Rai, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002 and published at 4/19, Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi (India). Editor: Manvendra Singh
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May 2016
Procurements for the Defence and Security forces have always been in a state of acute and critical exigency; and have always been a perplexing and tricky challenge for India. The governments post-Independence have overlooked these procurement concerns, which have eventuated in our National Security being grievously and dangerously compromised. It is sadly beyond comprehension as to why, when almost every other sector in our country has well defined norms, policies and road maps, the Defence and Security sector continues to suffer a step treatment. Evidently, one of the reasons for such a negligent attitude towards the defence sector is the nexus between some greedy foreign companies and our corrupt politicians … a nexus that has stalled and denigrated the Defence procurement procedures and this has been brought to cognizance through the Bofors Scam. An error in hindsight is the second reason … which is a complete absence of the private sector from the supply chain. Over the past decade, efforts have been made to rectify the disastrous situation by encouraging private sector to invest in military related production. The current NDA government led by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken control of the helm with greater vigour. Amendments have been made to the procurement policy with exports central to a stratagem of Make in India. The biggest hurdle which has been perceived in the procurement procedures is the dragged-out trials of any technology which usually takes from 3 to 5 years and by the time one is shortlisted, either the technology becomes outdated or there is a complaint scandal involved against the company, bringing the entire process to a fatal halt. Such protracted steps have alarmingly hampered India’s defence system due to failure of timely procurement of essentials. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has envisaged this implosion and has taken things within his purview to address the whole scenario directly. He has been monitoring the situation in three separate phases: • He has been motivating the Indian companies to get involved with international Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for Joint Ventures for the production of military hardware required by the Defence and Security forces. • He has been boisterously inviting all Defence Giants to start manufacturing defence and security equipment in India and offer their technologies under the ‘Make in India’ programme. • During the last two years of his tenure as the Prime Minister, he has been extensively travelling around the globe and inviting the Heads of States and Governments of all such countries that are prominent manufacturers of various military technologies and equipment. The opposition along with a considerable quantum of our population has been making a mockery of the Prime Minister’s foreign tours. But I feel that such an attack has materialised only because of the opposition’s inability to envisage his vision to diminish procurement complexities and convince the national and international stakeholders for joint ventures. The Prime Minister’s sole goal is to make India a world leader and his efforts ought to bring a sense of pride to every nationalist along with adequately curbing nonsensical remarks from the opposition and biased media. Under the conducive and impactful leadership of our Prime Minister, I am optimistic that all challenges and hurdles will be minimised or eradicated and all miscellany of deficiencies in Defence and Security will be expunged in a holistic manner. His bona fide efforts prove that defence is not FUN. His unflinching focus on defence strategies and plans display an urgency, sincere concern and priority of this nationalist government for a safe and secure nation. This edition, dear reader, highlights and deliberates upon challenges and mounting deficiencies in the Defence and Security sector and commends possible solutions from stalwarts, making this a reference edition on the subject. I am sure that the same will be zealously considered by the powers that be. Jai Hind!
Defence AND security alert
Pawan Agrawal
Contents
TM
An ISO 9001:2008 Certified Magazine
Caught Between Standardisation And Discounts Air Marshal Nirdosh V Tyagi (Retd)
06
------------------------------------------------------------Positive Signals, But A Long Road Ahead Maj Gen Dhruv C Katoch (Retd)
09
------------------------------------------------------------Deficiencies Prod Acquisitions 12 CMDE Ranjit B Rai (Retd) ------------------------------------------------------------Shortfalls - Cause For Worry Lt Gen Prakash Katoch (Retd)
15
------------------------------------------------------------DSA Interview DGOF & Chairman Ashwani Kumar Prabhakar
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------------------------------------------------------------A Process Too Lengthy Air Marshal Dhiraj Kukreja (Retd)
22
------------------------------------------------------------Suicide Bombings: A Genesis Diana Mehra
25
------------------------------------------------------------Depleting Numbers And Insufficient Budget Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retd)
26
------------------------------------------------------------DPP 2016 – Structural And Conceptual Flaws Cdr Sunil Chauhan (Retd)
30
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Defence AND security alert
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Policy Of Calibrated Growth Dr Rajiv Nayan/Alisha Anand
34
------------------------------------------------------------The Quandary Of Quagmires Col KV Kuber (Retd)
37
------------------------------------------------------------Hurdles And Mounting Deficiencies In DPP Amit Cowshish
41
------------------------------------------------------------Accountability Is The Key Colonel Sanjeev Dalal Retd)
44
------------------------------------------------------------Defence Procurement – PPP Setup Radhakrishna Rao
47
------------------------------------------------------------Red Tape And In-Built Agent Nests Mukund Puranik
50
------------------------------------------------------------Pakistan’s Policy Of Thousand Cuts Lt Gen Harwant Singh (Retd)
54
------------------------------------------------------------Can An IDDM Deal With It? Cecil Victor
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May 2016
Defence AND security alert
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