DAC clears Rs 1.10 lakh crore of buys, 98 percent from Indian firms

The Defence Acquisition Council, meeting under Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on 7 September, granted Acceptance of Necessity for capital purchases worth about Rs 1.10 lakh crore. The Ministry of Defence said roughly 98 percent of those buys are meant to come from Indian industry. AoN is the first formal yes. It is not a contract. It lets the services write detailed specifications and open negotiations.

The package is spread across the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, with two systems listed for use beyond a single service.

What each service is in line to get

For the Army the council approved chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear reconnaissance vehicles, high-mobility vehicles, self-propelled mechanical mine layers, Advanced Light Helicopters, trawl tanks and the Sarvatra bridge system. The CBRN vehicles are meant to find and mark contaminated ground. The mine layers and trawl tanks are for a land war in which fields are sown and then have to be crossed. Sarvatra is a bridging set that lets a column move over gaps without waiting for engineers to build a fixed span. The ALH order, if it becomes a contract, adds to a fleet already built by Hindustan Aeronautics.

For the Navy the council approved Arudhra radars and the design, development and later purchase of marine gas turbines. Arudhra is intended to replace air-route surveillance radars at naval air stations. The turbine project is the larger industrial bet. Indian warships still depend on imported propulsion. A domestic marine gas turbine, if it works at sea, cuts that line.

For the Air Force the ministry gave fewer named platforms and said the approved items are meant to raise the fighting value of fighters, transports and helicopters. Two systems were named. Ground-based multi-purpose jammers are meant to blind hostile radars. The Defence Forces Secure Access Card would replace paper identity cards and gate passes with an RFID smart card that works across the three services.

What 98 percent domestic actually means

AoN at this size is a demand signal. Indian shipyards, vehicle makers, radar houses and HAL now have a list they can take to lenders and to subcontractors. The 2 percent that is still foreign will sit in engines, chips and a few sensors that no Indian line yet makes at the required grade. The marine turbine line is an attempt to shrink that remainder.

Singh is in Colombo this week on a visit that itself includes defence papers with Sri Lanka. The DAC meeting was held before he flew. The two facts belong together only in this sense: New Delhi is buying at home at the same time as it is writing smaller support deals abroad.

Contracts will take months and in some cases years. Several of the Army items are repeat buys of types already in service. The turbine and the jammer are not. Those two will decide whether Tuesday's 98 percent figure is a procurement slogan or a change in what Indian factories can put on a ship and on a runway.