AatmaNirbhar Bharat or Import Nirbhar Bharat ?

Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan or Self-reliant India campaign is the vision of new India with the aim to make the country self-reliant in various sectors. But it turns out India is not a serious nation in terms of self reliance. Read below.

In 2010 the last iteration of DRDO's Kaveri Engine achieved 73KN against the target of 80KN & the engine weighing 1100 KG against the target of 1180 KG, Indian Government instead of pushing the project further with more funds & resources they decided to de-fund the project. Even the government has not tried to make an advance out of the achieved capabilities. They could have certified the existing variant after certain weight reductions & should have proceeded to make the engines for MTA (Medium Transport Aircraft) & MPA (Maritime Patrol Aircraft) indigenously. If you want to become self reliant you have to spend money on R&D.

Many people advocate Modi's achievement of procuring 36 Rafales and S-400, But ....Come on guys!! how can you glorify the imported stuff, then what's the difference between previous and current governments. We would rather say Modi's achievement is IDEX, Technology development fund & private-public partnership for ammunition production. The IDEX & Technology related Development funds are really empowering the tech startups. Rather the current government has the same laziness attitude as the previous ones, Otherwise they we wouldn't have taken 4 years to place the order of 83 Tejas MK1A after the Indian Air Force's FOC (Final Operation Clearance).

Hypocrisy & Lobby for foreign import ??

Govt of India spent 4 billion dollars to procure 31 MQ-9's but couldn't sanction $1 billion to develop indigenous HALE drones. They strictly expected to achieve every damn parameter from the indigenous TAPAS UAV, but then instead ordered the Israeli Hermes-900 & Heron MK2 which couldn't achieve the desired parameters.

During the evaluation trials of Arjun MBT (Main Battle Tank) & T-90, the indigenous Arjun MBT outperformed Russian T-90 in every parameters, still India imported T-90s in huge numbers.

Another blatant example is the recent Indian MoD's plan to procure Stryker Armoured vehicles from Canada, over the indigenous WhAP program(a joint initiative between DRDO and TATA Advanced Systems). WhAP is a successful example of an indigenously designed public-private partnership. It is cost effective and has an edge in terms of customization, as we can maintain autonomy over its design and production. After trials of WHAP, based on input given by the Army, DRDO & Mahindra co developed WHAP Gen2 which was quite improved than the previous gen. WHAP has amphibious capability, but the Stryker lacks it. Hopefully, the Moroccan export order for India's Whap and the deteriorating diplomatic relations between India and Canada, at the very least, will prompt introspection in MoD.

India can spend 7 billion dollars to import 26 Rafale-M, but we are short of funds for indigenous TEDBF program. Many deals are still pending for indigenous systems like LCH, ATAGS, MGS.

SSS Defence exported their own .338 Lapua Magnum Sniper Rifle to a friendly foreign country but our forces didn't. NATO countries inducted military gear from Indian Company MKU before India.

The list of hypocrisy is full and goes on, we can't list everything here but, we are concluding with a statement "India can make capacity out of import, but it can't make the capability".

Sources: Wikipedia, IDRW.

Image credits: Shutterstock