Junior Defence Minister Ajay Bhatt told the Parliament in a written reply earlier this week that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) of India was working on 55 ‘mission mode’ projects.
These projects come with a sanctioned cost of Rs 73,943 crore overall.
AIP for submarines, combat suites, torpedoes, fighter aircraft, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, gas turbine engines, assault rifles, warheads, light machine guns, rockets, advanced towed artillery gun systems, infantry combat vehicles, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, anti-airfield weapons, and glide bombs are some of the projects that are included in this DRDO list.
India is the third-largest military spender in the world, trailing only the US and China, who each spend four times as much on defence.
India is currently the world’s largest importer of guns, accounting for 11 percent of all its defence imports, hence the government has taken various measures to remove the country from this strategically precarious position.
But much work remains to be done. Better cost-effective performance is required from the DRDO, defence PSUs, and ordnance manufacturers, as well as considerably greater engagement from the domestic private sector, with global majors putting up production sites in India.
In another reply in the Lok Sabha, Bhatt said that in the previous five years, India bought military equipment from other nations worth Rs 1.93 lakh crore (almost $24 billion), including helicopters, aircraft radars, rockets, weapons, assault rifles, missiles, and ammunition from the US, Russia, France, Israel, and Spain, among others.
Since 2017–2018, India has signed 264 capital procurement contracts for military equipment, with 88 of those agreements with foreign vendors, representing 36 percent of the overall value.
