Defence Acquisition

The acrimonious debate in the public space on the acquisition of Rafale aircraft has been primarily focused on a few issues. The debate does not inform the public about the long, arduous and complex nature of the programme and the joint effort invested in it. The uniqueness of this programme is also not in the public domain. It does not specifically inform the lay person as to the rationale for restricting the numbers to two squadrons, and carries on oblivious of the collateral effect it may have on future acquisition programmes.

• Vinay Kaushal
• Occasional Papers

• Laxman Kumar Behera , Vinay Kaushal
• Book

The Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA) is the organisation that is responsible for ensuring the quality of a wide range of military hardware at the time of their procurement. This is a very old organisation and has evolved over a period of time to meet the aspirations of its customers. However, since the introduction of Defence Procurement Procedure it has invited lot of criticism from its users due to the delays caused in procurements and attributable to Quality Assurance (QA), as also the introduction of sub-standard equipment in service.

• Mahendra Prasad
• Monograph

• S. D. Muni , Vivek Chadha
• Book

The success of the co-development-cum-production push in Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 would depend on the commercial viability of the co-developed product, apart from overcoming a host of conceptual and procedural challenges.

• Amit Cowshish
• August 17, 2022
• IDSA Comments

Micro and macro-level budgetary reforms are required to ensure optimum utilisation of the allocated resources for executing financially viable plans.

• Amit Cowshish
• August 02, 2022
• IDSA Comments

The Srijan defence indigenisation portal is a limited but concrete example of the implications of India’s defence indigenisation efforts for key strategic partners like Israel.

• S. Samuel C. Rajiv
• February 04, 2022
• Issue Brief

Defence procurement in India needs to adopt a mix of procurement avenues in which the indigenous solutions, foreign equipment and futuristic R&D continue together in a balanced manner. Considering that piecemeal solutions are not effective in the long term, there is a need to adopt a ‘Systems Approach’ to come up with a holistic solution which is enduring and progressive.

• Manish Rana
• December 02, 2021
• IDSA Comments

The GFR 2017 permit individual ministries to issue detailed instructions to address the needs and complexities of procurement carried out by them. The question is whether those principles and rules come in the way of the Ministry of Defence evolving a more efficient procurement procedure that meets the armed forces’ aspirations.

• Amit Cowshish
• August 19, 2021
• IDSA Comments

If existing procurement procedures are a hindrance in acquiring state-of-the-art defence materiel expeditiously, a case needs to be made out, based on demonstrable drawbacks of the existing system for a detailed blueprint of what system should replace it.

• Amit Cowshish
• August 10, 2021
• IDSA Comments