Rahul Singh
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My concern is limited to their willingness to do critical R&D on their own. And they will have do it and prove it by developing critical subsystems on their own before they can dream of large orders. But instead of it, what our Industry is doing, is helping foreign vendors to sell their products masked as Indian. Lets take the case of SAMTEL. They are trying to sell various HMDS and HUD to HAL as indigenous but the fact is their HMDS and HUDs are Thales design. Now what will happen if HAL places order with SAMTEL rejecting BEL which manufactures DRDO designed HUD and MFDs? Won't we fool ourselves and waste huge amount of tax payer's money?
Point i am making is, as of today our private companies are not reliable enough so that government can sell DPSUs like HAL to them. They will have to first prove their capability. L&T had proven some capability that is why it is one of contender for Navy's second line of SSKs. But the same organization failed to prove itself in aviation and that is why IAF selected HAL over L&T for manufacturing SARAS. Now Mahindra aerospace is doing some serious work in aerospace - it is developing NM-5 with NAL - so i am expecting some change in IAF's attitude. Since project Saras has got delayed IAF might reconsider and grant manufacturing rights to Mahindra.
For encouraging private participation MoD is already inviting them to bid for various tenders. FICV and Rustan-H are two such project where an Indian private firm could become leader. But again everything will boil down to their ability, capability and above all their willingness to shove their own money in R&D.
Transition is a slow process and can not hurried discarding fear of negative consequences. India is very willing to offload substantial amount of defence R&D and production to private sector but it can't be done over night. Not to mention our private companies are still in nascent stage and will take time get mature.
Point i am making is, as of today our private companies are not reliable enough so that government can sell DPSUs like HAL to them. They will have to first prove their capability. L&T had proven some capability that is why it is one of contender for Navy's second line of SSKs. But the same organization failed to prove itself in aviation and that is why IAF selected HAL over L&T for manufacturing SARAS. Now Mahindra aerospace is doing some serious work in aerospace - it is developing NM-5 with NAL - so i am expecting some change in IAF's attitude. Since project Saras has got delayed IAF might reconsider and grant manufacturing rights to Mahindra.
For encouraging private participation MoD is already inviting them to bid for various tenders. FICV and Rustan-H are two such project where an Indian private firm could become leader. But again everything will boil down to their ability, capability and above all their willingness to shove their own money in R&D.
Transition is a slow process and can not hurried discarding fear of negative consequences. India is very willing to offload substantial amount of defence R&D and production to private sector but it can't be done over night. Not to mention our private companies are still in nascent stage and will take time get mature.
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