Over-reliance on foreign original equipment manufacturers (OEM) for their technology has been a cause of worry for private manufacturers so far. However, SP Shukla, Chairman, Mahindra Defence & Mahindra Aerospace is optimistic about how this can change. He says, “As the technology transfer funnel grows with the increased involvement of private sector players, we will have higher degree of independence even in the domain of critical technologies.”
Before private companies were given better leeway in the defence sector, India followed an inverted pyramid approach to build the ecosystem for defence manufacturing, according to Sachin Agarwal, managing director of PTC Industries, which is into manufacturing high quality components for aerospace and defence. He suggests a bottom-up strategy instead. “If we only keep our sight on the system-level final products like tanks, aircrafts, submarines, etc, we will remain dependent on foreign players and their collaboration. And, that will limit the potential of domestic manufacturers,” he says.
Agarwal further recommends targeted policies for developing supply-chain based ecosystems. He cites semiconductor policy as an example of a targeted approach and calls for such policies in core manufacturing technologies, with cross-platform applications in defence sector. Such policy-level changes can be successfully implemented only with the collaboration of public and private sectors.