You can keep giving motherhood statements like one should work for a pittance for 1/10 the salary for the sake of patriotism but 60 years after independence we all know that’s not how the world works.

As a matter of fact times have changed – new policies are in place where credible private companies called “Raksha Udyog Ratnas” are being given equal access big research, development and production projects as the public sector. The likes of L&T and Godrej are in the mix and to answer your question they are doing a pretty good job.

Link: Riding the Elephant – Defence Industry Jewels

Link: The Hindu – 12 firms to get Raksha Udyog Ratna status

Organizations like DRDO failed in part because of a lack of quality culture on their shop floors. These are also large organizations that are too huge to take up projects with focus. In these new environments, DRDO and other defence organizations like BDL are moving into a different roles with private industries playing the roles of actual manufacturing vendors.

Do yo really think they will invest moolah to do research, than churning the same copies. We have seen the private industries same ambassador, bajaj auto, rajdoot, yazdi, the list is endless.

Again it is not about ability or funds, it is the people at the helm who should be made accountable. A person leading the Tank project for 30 years and failed is put in charge of the whole organisation as reward. That said person block the extension of service of a guy who brough finished product. This is the kind of reward and accountability present, how can an organisation succeds?

Again whishing that private sector will achive what DRDO failed is pure fantasy. Do you think Govt will provide funds for say Tata and reliance for fighter project or Tank? If not what are they for assembling components?

One thing that has changed from the past is the involvement of private industry. Earlier all defence deals were the domain of HAL, DRDO, Ordnance Factories etc. Private industry had no chance of bidding for these tenders. Today private industry is already doing a huge amount of work for Indian defence organizations.

Conversely many Indian defence organizations were obliged to buy sub standard equipment/machines/technology from fellow public sector companies. This is now no longer the case and where obstacles are in place defence industry has started using private industry vendors to work around them.

What did we learn from MIG-21, Jaguar assembling/manufacturing that we want to take it further with MRCA? Have we did with MIG21 like J-7 or planned to do with SU-30 like J-11B the way chinese did? NO!! All we hear is SU-30 is very complex system to assemble so we will ordering fresh 40 more, to cover of the slow pace of assembly. Now just imagine what will be the result with RAFALE OR TYPHOONE, considering we find soveit built complx( should see to bElive the quality of construction that RUSSIA did in SU-30).

Please don’t go with the press report of defence companies waiting with “begging bowl’/“sufficiently subservient” thing, they are still out there doing the SHINNING INDIA”/super power Thingy.

Read more on the MRCA News here …

Jing, at Aero India in Banglaore this year aircraft company officials were “sufficiently subservient” if you don’t like the term begging (as they should be for a $10 billion deal). Do a Google Image search for Aero India and you will see pictures as well. Anyway I think Pragmatic used the term only in reference to CyberTraker.

If suppliers are thinking they can wiggle out of this deal without committing to technology transfer they are deluding themselves. This is why I mentioned the MiG 35 as the front runner as the Russians have made huge commitments with India in the past in both spares and avionics. India is already in talks with Russia to be a part of the Sukhoi G-5 consortium which is a competitor to the F 35.

Thanks for the inputs. The \’begging bowl\’ term was used by a visitor to this blog. Going by the pulls and pressures being applied on India by various governments and industry executives (there are myriad press reports about these)it doesn\’t seem to be a seller\’s market. Unless you are looking for a specific technology or specific equipment, there are options available. As most of the defence equipment that India is looking for is from a different generation, there are no issues of continuity and logistics support. Else, we would be still stuck up with equipment of Soviet origin.

Having and implementing a defence offset policy is better than having none. It is a small but significant change that can have long term benefits. Indian establishment has to just play it smart now from hereon.