BOMBAY: The Union Defence Minister Sharad Pawar said that India would like to enter the world arms bazar in a big way. Talking to reporters the defence minister said that he had decided to give a thrust to the export of defence items since most of them were excellent in quality and therefore could complete well in the global arms market The arms export figure which stood at 8 crore last year was expected to reach 120 crore this year. “Our target here is to reach the Rs.500 crore marks” he said.
Pawar however declined to disclose the name of the buyers of the Indian arms saying that a buyer country wouldn’t want that to be made public for obvious reasons.
The Defence Minister strongly defended his ministry’s latest outlook in favor of opening up some reason of defence production to the private sector saying that there was nothing wrong if the Govt allowed private entrepreneurs to use surplus production capacity available with many ordnance factories. He mentioned that about 60% of the defence units used 50% of their production capacity while other 40% units made a very particular use of their capacity.
About entry of the private sector in the defence production violating the sanctity of the production process Pawar said irritably “I am against all this thinking against our approach to the Army as a holy cow. If (the area of production) is really sensitive we will keep it secret (Our) previous resources are being spent on production. People in India have every right to know when these resources are being spent).
Replying to a question the Defence Minister mentioned that following his ministry’s favorable outlook on privatization of part of defence production a delegation of Confederation of Engineering Industries (CEI) met him on Tuesday to discuss the concept of the private sector using the spare capacity of the defence units. The ministry had appointed a small group of exporters under the chairmanship of the Defence Secretary to study the privatization concept in detail he added.
When asked if the Centre’s keenness on entering the world arms market didn’t go against the grain of India’s avowed policy of not abetting the arms race in the world Pawar side-stepped the point saying “if arms were not be sold how do you think India gets in arms from abroad”.
About the possibility of Indians joining hands with Pakistan for a mutual arms reduction treaty on the lines of the START treaty made by the U.S. and the Soviet Union the Defence Minister said the Indian Govt would be keener on having that kind of arrangement with China which he said occupied greater concern in the country’s defence needs.
He also mentioned that the work on sealing of the Punjab border by putting up a barbed wire fence there had been completed to check infiltration on militants into the country.
Pawar said that he was worried over the attempt to create controversy over the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) and firmly ruled out the possibility of India buying these LCA’s from the Soviet Union. He said that he would visit Bangalore soon to study the present state of affairs of the LCA production there and look into the possibility of further indigenization of the aircraft.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 16, 1991
