An Indispensable ban!

India imports over 74% of its military equipment. The defense purchases are estimated to be around 80-100 billion $ till the end of the 13th Five-Year Defence Finance Plan in 2022. Hence, it is evident the process of acquisition is very critical. One aspect to look into is that of the banned defence agents. Although banned, the agents play an indespansable role in the process. I am not saying this! It was the Prime Minister of our country, Mr. Manmohan Singh who publically admitted the fact. This is an irony. On one hand, we advocate the view to ban the agents but on the other hand, we are of the opposite view. The roots lie in the complexity of the process. Approval from about 18 MoD* and related departments is needed to acquire defense equipment. And the result is, yes you guessed it right! Corruption.

From money to jewellery, from expensive cars to SUVs, our esteemed army officers take it all. The situation before "Bofors" was even worser. The officers used to sign the papers in return to expensive pens. Now, the demands have gone up! Inflation, you know! 

Today, arm suppliers from all around the globe have set up their agencies in the country to keep an eye. They hire retired army officials for the job. Moreover, they try to establish strong networks with MoD people and bureaucrats. It is important and unfortunate at the same time. There is immense compitetion amongst the players. Also, there is immense corruption in the system. The root cause lies in the lack of scrutiny which is almost impossible to implement because of the size of the system. I am not saying that everyone is corrupt. But it's pretty evident that the corrupts have outnumbered the honest. We can go on and on and blame the circumstances but we should never forget that we are the only ones who created such circumstances.

So it's important to monitor the situation. All i would suggest is that there is a need of conducting regular audits and keep an eye on the process. There is another side to it. If monitored, there is a possibility of outrage amongst the defence community which could prove to be very costly. But it is important to put some checks as the quality of the arms is at stake.

* MoD = Ministry of Defence