Joshi panel seeks details of private participation in defence

NEW DELHI: A Parliamentary panel headed by veteran BJP leader Dr Murli Manohar Joshi has sought details of all public-private ventures in the

defence sector after liberalising of this sector. The Estimate Committee in its last report tabled in the recently concluded Monsoon Session had

gone into all aspects of defence preparedness of the country. In the report, the committee unanimously raised concern about defence procurement.

NEW DELHI: A Parliamentary panel headed by veteran BJP leader Dr Murli Manohar Joshi has sought details of all public-private ventures in the defence sector after liberalising of this sector.

The Estimate Committee in its last report tabled in the recently concluded Monsoon Session had gone into all aspects of defence preparedness of the country. In the report, the committee unanimously raised concern about defence procurement of the country including involvement of private parties into this core sector. While commenting on the role of private sector in the defence sector, the committee observed that defence was a highly sensitive area and utmost care was needed to maintain the confidentiality of all sensitive information.

The committee also said, “While taking the initiative to

liberalise FDI and private sector partnership in defence production the committee would

like the government to take all requisite precautions to ensure that our defence capabilities are not compromised.

The committee also recommended to institutionalise the public-private venture and the government should report back to the committee at the earliest. Sources in the committee indicated that before the next Winter Session of the Parliament representatives of the defence ministry would be called for this report.

The Ministry of Defence on earlier occasion strongly denied the shortage of ammunition of Indian armed forces. However, the Committee during the course of examination has been apprised by the Ministry of Defence that the short- age strictly in the totality is not there yet there are 10-15 ammunitions where there are shortages and some of them of a critical nature.

The Committee finds that the ordinance factories have achieved some expertise in armaments and weapon manufacturing although dependency on imported parts and systems is the area of concern. As far as the production of armaments by Ordnance Factories is concerned, the Committee noted that the dependency on import with regard to heavy equipment range has considerably decreased. In respect of T-90 tanks, the dependency on import has decreased from 40% to 13%, as stated by the representatives of MOD during the course of evidence. The Committee still feels that more need to be done to reduce our dependency on imports. In the aforesaid scenario, the Committee recommended that adequate allocations should be provided under the Revenue Head for meeting the shortage of armaments with the services besides upgrading the manufacturing capacity of Ordinance factories s serving to the Services in this regard.

While expressing concern on country’s defence preparedness, the committee said in its 29th report, “From the data made available to the Commit- tee, it has found that defence expenditure has marginally increased since 2014-15 and when compared to Central Government expenditure, the percentage has declined from 13.15 during 2014-15 to 12.20 during 2017-18. Defence expenditure when analysed as a percentage of GDP, in the last few years it has ranged between 2.06 per cent (2014-15) to 1.56 per cent (2017-18). As per Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) study, defence expenditure as a share of GDP of China and France has remained the same, increased in case of Saudi Arabia and Russia and decreased in case of USA and UK in the last decade (2007-2017), however, keeping in view the scale of GDP the developed countries have, the decrease of defence expenditure as percentage of GDP in India, as per Government data, is more noticeable.