Defence acquisition: Not yet in the fast lane

Whether for this government or the next, there is no avoiding reform

With the current National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s five-year-long custodianship of national defence drawing to a close, the acquisition policy landscape is littered with grand initiatives that failed to reach a conclusion. When he was defence minister, Manohar Parrikar repeatedly promised a simplified defence procurement procedure (DPP) that would expedite weaponry purchases. Eventually issued after more than a year’s delay, DPP-2016 turned out nine pages longer than its already gargantuan, 421-page predecessor, DPP-2013, and aimed no higher than reducing procurement time from 137 weeks to 126 weeks. Last March, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman released a draft “Defence Production Policy 2018