Incorrect. Atleast the deals being negotiated since the last 5 years have almost everything needed to ensure Indian industry gets the most it can out of even foreign procurement.
Indigenous alternatives are NOT AVAILABLE in a majority of cases. In such circumstances it is advisable to take advantage of the sources you have in order to meet your operational goals. Even Russia & China do this without fail.
If you wish to go by "indigenous weapons or no weapons", your projects will never take off. Thanks to the fact that we're able to procure from abroad, we atleast manage to get partly indigenous equipment into service (i.e. Arjun, Tejas, ships etc.). If we refused to buy GE F404 and decide to stick with indigenous Kaveri from the start, who knows when Tejas would be ready??
If the Chinese decided not to buy foreign engines (AL-31F) from whatever sources they had, how long would it have taken them to get WS-10 ready for J-10s and J-11s? China would still be flying J-7s today if they really followed the "indigenous or nothing" policy. That's just retarded - no sane person or country would achieve any measure of success that way.
Wrong. Most of the deals signed in the last years are SCREWDRIVER technology. NOTHING of value has been transferred to Indian industry.
Indigenous alternatives become AVAILABLE ONLY when you FUND it and allow it to DEVELOP. NECESSITY is the MOTHER of INVENTION. They do not become magially available just because the Defence forces Wish it.
Your operational goals have to be in line with our local capacity. There is no point in having an operational goal to go to the next galaxy if you cannot build a star ship.
In my local ligo, there is an old saying. "You cannot grow a pig hoping that your neighbours have enough shit". Yet that is exactly what the Defence forces are doing. Building operational requirements based on what the neighbour has. Their operational requirement has to be based on what WE HAVE.
Building a jet engine is a 40 year project and program. Not a 10 year project. And it needs focus, investment, support and infrastructure. So unless the Defence forces build them, there is no genie in the bottle to make it all happen just because they WISH it.
One way to counter a conventional build up is by unconventional strategy. That is why pakistan has India by the balls and India army is forced to make impotent and laughable comments.
Not at all - the MoD is doing everything in it's power to ensure that the local industry gets the maximum benefit out of the foreign procurement being made. That is what the whole local production is all about!
Investment, jobs, skill-development, production contracts to local suppliers etc. - I am willing to say that a deal like Rafale actually creates just as much economic benefit for the local industry as a "Indian" plane like Tejas did. Perhaps even more.
And when I say industry, I mean actual material benefit - purely economic or infrastructure-wise.
Ofcourse development of Tejas provided us with knowledge about the R&D cycle which no foreign vendor is likely to share, but we are talking about actual industrial benefits here.
The MoD is doing jack $hit. They have no clue about what needs to be done, or how to go about doing it.
If they did then Local production would NOT have been the focus, LOCAL RESEARCH would have been the focus. And not just the DRDO, ALL Universities would have been roped in and wold have been involved in National building. That is what the US, USSR and China did.
Rafale ToT is just paperware for now. I don't want to waste time in useless speculation. But at 20% offset, all it will do is create a few body panels, maybe a landing gear, tyres, displays and maybe a few avionics.
By now work should have started on a second engine. Maybe even by a private company with govt. funding or tax rebates or land grants or easy loans. But you will never find such out of box thinking from the MoD.
The eventual aim of the MoD is obviously to create self-reliance. However, it is a not a one-step process. Licensed production is just a step toward that goal.
In the meantime - look at the condition & work ethic of the state-run agencies in India. They are not profit-driven enterprises. They do not have any incentive to work, meet schedules or deliver products. They will be paid their salaries & pension regardless of their performance. Is this the kind of agency you want to entrust the defence production of India to?
I wouldn't do that.
If you want to achieve self-sufficiency in defence production, I'm sorry but the current crop of government companies are not getting you anywhere. Private companies are the way forward.
That said, it's advisable to pursue procurement on a economic basis than a purely nationalistic one.
License production is just a step in creating more blue coller workers and jobs, not technology.
Our Defence factors are just that, FACTORIES, not Research organisation and most times they have no R&D wing primarily because there is NO INCENTIVE to have one.
Create the Incentive and the organisations will follow suite. Its the MoD that has to create the incentive and it does not have to be threat all the time.
