SOURCE: NARAYAN APTE/ FOR MY TAKE / IDRW.ORG
From Light Battle Tanks to Anti-Tank Missiles, From Assault Rifles to air defense missiles, Sudden rush to buy more weapons under
“Emergency Purchases” tag has made many wonder why only border crisis promote the purchase of weapons for the forces and who ” Make in India ” Claim on defence system is fast turning out to be a Hoax which seems to have not moved from paper to reality even after Modi being in power for 6 years now.
Purchase of Barak-8 Air Defence System from Israeli inventory only shows that process of the Make In India is yet to go in full speed while deals are announced in a jiffy it takes months if not years for these deals to materialize in reality. Spike ATGM was supposed to be interim purchase before DRDO developed ATGM was to enter production which is yet to begin its User Trials after completion of its developmental trials. why there were delays in user trials is yet to be explained by same Spike ATGM which was purchased earlier under emergency purchases are being procured again as Emergency purchases.
Multiple Assault Rifles deals also show that local private firms who have developed Assault Rifles are not even considered and the same goes to the State-owned companies who also have developed Assault Rifles which Army considers good for Paramilitary forces but not good enough for itself. Army looking to procure Light Battle Tanks to counter Chinese Z-15 Light tanks in LAC only shows that neither our Top officials in Army are incompetent in the planning of Weapons requirement or they wait for border tensions to push this so-called emergency purchases which even if ordered today will take at least 12 months to be delivered if this was planned properly, Private firms in India could have developed one in an existing platform in 2-3 years such Light Tanks which now Army is scouting for.