A fundamental problem is that the defence industry is comfortable with licenced production, rather than the more painstaking route of indigenous development. In the absence of policy directives to Defence Public sector units/ Ordnance factories and even private sector industries wanting to enter Defence production to ensure certain percentage of their turnover exclusively by way of indigenously developed products, the goals of self reliance cannot be met by DRDO's efforts alone. The private sector will have to be provided sweeteners, in terms of incentives for taking up at least engineering development for production and, where possible, participation right from early stages of project. All major acquisitions from abroad while providing short-term comfort to MoD, also places responsibility on it to ensure that the technology transfers and offset provisions be capitalised through follow-on projects to be taken up indigenously. If not, these gains will be dissipated and nullified.
To claim India's rightful place as geopolitical power, we need to establish capability in propulsion, navigation, sensors etc. There is a need to invest heavily in basic research in universities. Adequate funding to our scientific institutions is required to generate expertise/experts in these areas through advanced courses. This is a time consuming and cost intensive activity. Until then strategic tie-up for specific products with certain countries, on whom we can depend, maybe the only solution. The strategy for acquisitions from abroad must factor in this requirement. Apart from academic qualifications, the scientists/ engineers need to get trained in specific tasks to pickup skills and talent for creatively transforming knowledge into products and systems. The industry can only mature through participation in development projects, technology absorption and value addition, fabrications & process engineering, packaging and integration. Hence, a deliberate policy for investment in production in respect of indigenous developments is essential for industries to mature. We are confident that each entity
