India’s move to ban the import of some weapon systems and military hardware to boost local manufacturing is being hindered by its push to procure as much as $2 billion in equipment to increase its defense preparedness as it faces a border stand-off with China and volatile relations with Pakistan.
The new curbs on $47 billion-worth of imports that include communication satellites, conventional submarines and light machine guns, announced Aug. 9, failed to address critical issues such as the certification of systems and locally made components, and will not prevent the military from making emergency purchases of equipment from foreign vendors, defense experts say.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to transform the world’s biggest arms importer into a defense manufacturing powerhouse have remained a nonstarter since the idea was first proposed in 2014. From a plan to produce indigenous equipment and systems worth $100 billion by 2020, the target has been slashed in half and the deadline extended to 2027. Now the country is four months into a confrontation with China along its unmarked Himalayan border that has plunged relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors to a four-decade low.