India aims to increase its defence exports from the current $1.5 billion to $5 billion a year by 2024-25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while inaugurating the latest Aero India show. Even as PM Modi outlined India’s ambitious plans, the government, on the same day, said in Parliament that half of the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) crucial ‘mission mode’ projects had been delayed. Here’s a look at India’s defense export plans and where we stand at the moment.
Exporting What And To Whom
In the last five years, India’s defence exports have increased by six times. India is now exporting defence equipment to 75 countries.
Italy, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Russia, France, Nepal, Mauritius, Israel, Egypt, UAE, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Poland, Spain and Chile are among India’s defence export destinations.
Key exports include HAL’s Dhruv helicopters to the Philippines, Mauritius and Ecuador, and BrahMos supersonic cruise missile to the Philippines. BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between India and Russia. HAL is also the frontrunner in a deal with Malaysia for its light combat aircraft Tejas.
Three Indian companies — Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Armoured Vehicles Nigam Limited (AVANI) of the Ordnance Factory Board and Bharat Electronics Limited — rank among top-100 defence companies in the world, according to a SIPRI report.
Other than the defence PSUs, about 50 Indian companies in the private sector have contributed to defence exports.
Personal protective gear, offshore patrol vessels, advance light helicopters, SU avionics, coastal surveillance systems and Kavach MoD II launcher are among the major defence items being exported, according to the Department of Defence Production website.
India On Imports’ List
India is the top importer of defence items in the world, according to a 2021 SIPRI report. India accounted for 11 per cent of global arms imports between 2017 and 2021, it said.
Russia has historically been India’s defence mainstay. It remained the top arms supplier to India but the volume of imports fell by 47 per cent between 2012-16 and 2017-21.
Between 2017 and 2021, India’s imports from France increased sharply and the European nation became India’s second largest supplier, according to the SIPRI report.
The Leading Exporters
The US, Russia, France, China, and Germany account for nearly 77 per cent of global arms exports, according to the SIPRI report. In the 2017-21 period, China accounted for 4.6 per cent of global arms exports. But Chinese exports saw a slide of 31 per cent from the 2012-2016 period.
India exported defence items worth ₹14,000 crore in 2021-22, according to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. This was a sharp increase from the Rs 900 crore of exports in 2014.
India’s Delayed Projects
Even as India ambitiously looks to increase its defence exports, crucial projects are getting delayed.
Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt told Parliament on Monday that 23 of 55 DRDO’s ‘mission mode’ projects have been delayed, according to a media report.
Mission mode projects are taken up by the DRDO as high-priority cases with a definite schedule for their completion.
Projects related to Tejas Mark-2 light combat aircraft (LCA), naval LCA, underwater endurance submarines, light machine guns, surface-to-air missiles, surface-to-surface missiles and advanced towed artillery gun systems are among those delayed.
The minister said the cost of 12 of the 55 DRDO projects, including the light combat aircraft, had escalated. Ajay Bhatt also outlined the steps being taken by the government to stem delays to crucial defence projects.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), too, had flagged the delay and cost overrun in completion of DRDO projects. The report was tabled in Parliament last December.
The CAG said that DRDO couldn’t stick to the original timeframe in 119 out of 178 projects. In 49 cases, the additional time was in fact more than 100% of the original schedule, the CAG report said.
