Snehesh Alex Philip, Deputy Editor, heads the defence, strategic and foreign affairs vertical. He joined ThePrint in January 2019. Snehesh can be reached at snehesh.philip@theprint.in
There’s some serious introspection required to bring this organisation aligned with Indian strategic planning, else we will continue to play n revise as we close in on the schedule.
Hawk aircraft have been delivered on time
For LCA HAL is only production agency
ADA is the design agency
Contracts would have been signed earlier but design for IOC was frozen only in 2016
For mirage first upgrade is from Dasaault HAL can only implement once upgrade is proved by Dasaault
For sukhoi role of Russian agencies for delays should also have been brought out
Hence the details presented are not holistic
While the futile and wasteful Rafale debate is raging in India, the French company Dassault Aviation has worked silently and has already commenced production of components of Falcon jets, meant for civil aviation at their Nagpur plant. This plant belongs to the Dassault-Reliance JV in which Dassault will invest around Rs.800 crore, which will constitute less than 3% of the total offset amount of Rs.30000 crore. All the 36 Rafale planes will be manufactured in France and Nagpur plant will have nothing to do with Rafale. Soon, the entire assembly of Falcon planes can take place at Nagpur providing cost saving of €5 million per plane to Dassault Aviation. Please note that Offset Guidlines enshrined in Defence Procurement Policy ( both 2013 & 2016 versions) allow for direct offset – involving co-production & transfer of technology and/ or indirect offset- investment or import from India of any goods or services which may or may not relate to the original contract of sell/purchase of Rafale planes. Now, if AA, being on the verge of bankruptcy, is not able to infuse his stake of 51% in the Nagpur JV, Dassault may make AA to sell his stake to some other Indian company. Offset guidelines allow for such changes with the consent of the GoI. I hope with this, there is some clarity on so called Anil Ambani scam. Just compare this track record of HAL.
There is a post of Secretary, Defence Production. Presumably, all these defence PSUs are his direct responsibility. Given the extraordinary importance of the subject, the Defence Secretary too would be monitoring this subject closely. It goes to the heart of both equipping the services with hardware they require and reducing the country’s exceptionally high dependence on imports. For that matter, RM too would be taking periodic reviews. So these slippages, delays, overruns are inexplicable. If Shri A K Anthony was skittish about dealing with foreign arms suppliers, he should have felt no diffidence in bringing his own PSUs to a much higher standard. My heart tells me too much time is spent on social media by people who have serious day jobs. Hence Ms Puja Mehra’s observation about five years of a PR campaign posing as five years of governance.
There’s some serious introspection required to bring this organisation aligned with Indian strategic planning, else we will continue to play n revise as we close in on the schedule.
Hawk aircraft have been delivered on time
For LCA HAL is only production agency
ADA is the design agency
Contracts would have been signed earlier but design for IOC was frozen only in 2016
For mirage first upgrade is from Dasaault HAL can only implement once upgrade is proved by Dasaault
For sukhoi role of Russian agencies for delays should also have been brought out
Hence the details presented are not holistic
Looks like all BJP allied news houses are hell bent on bringing down HAL. When they struggle CAN ANIL AMBANI DELIVER ON TIME??????
While the futile and wasteful Rafale debate is raging in India, the French company Dassault Aviation has worked silently and has already commenced production of components of Falcon jets, meant for civil aviation at their Nagpur plant. This plant belongs to the Dassault-Reliance JV in which Dassault will invest around Rs.800 crore, which will constitute less than 3% of the total offset amount of Rs.30000 crore. All the 36 Rafale planes will be manufactured in France and Nagpur plant will have nothing to do with Rafale. Soon, the entire assembly of Falcon planes can take place at Nagpur providing cost saving of €5 million per plane to Dassault Aviation. Please note that Offset Guidlines enshrined in Defence Procurement Policy ( both 2013 & 2016 versions) allow for direct offset – involving co-production & transfer of technology and/ or indirect offset- investment or import from India of any goods or services which may or may not relate to the original contract of sell/purchase of Rafale planes. Now, if AA, being on the verge of bankruptcy, is not able to infuse his stake of 51% in the Nagpur JV, Dassault may make AA to sell his stake to some other Indian company. Offset guidelines allow for such changes with the consent of the GoI. I hope with this, there is some clarity on so called Anil Ambani scam. Just compare this track record of HAL.
There is a post of Secretary, Defence Production. Presumably, all these defence PSUs are his direct responsibility. Given the extraordinary importance of the subject, the Defence Secretary too would be monitoring this subject closely. It goes to the heart of both equipping the services with hardware they require and reducing the country’s exceptionally high dependence on imports. For that matter, RM too would be taking periodic reviews. So these slippages, delays, overruns are inexplicable. If Shri A K Anthony was skittish about dealing with foreign arms suppliers, he should have felt no diffidence in bringing his own PSUs to a much higher standard. My heart tells me too much time is spent on social media by people who have serious day jobs. Hence Ms Puja Mehra’s observation about five years of a PR campaign posing as five years of governance.