Day 79 – Q.2 India’s defence PSUs must improve their efficiency and performance to ensure their continued relevance and competitiveness in a rapidly changing global defence landscape. Elucidate.

India’s defence PSUs must improve their efficiency and performance to ensure their continued relevance and competitiveness in a rapidly changing global defence landscape. Elucidate.

भारत के रक्षा सार्वजनिक उपक्रमों को तेजी से बदलते वैश्विक रक्षा परिदृश्य में अपनी निरंतर प्रासंगिकता और प्रतिस्पर्धा सुनिश्चित करने के लिए अपनी दक्षता और प्रदर्शन में सुधार करना चाहिए। स्पष्ट करें।

Approach

Candidates can start the answer with basic idea of Indian defence PSU and there self sufficiency also as per demand highlight what necessitates the to make it competitive in global defence landscape.

Introduction

Defence PSUs are responsible for the design, development, and manufacture of a wide range of defence equipment, including fighter aircraft, tanks, naval vessels, missiles, and ammunition. India’s Defence PSUs play a critical role in meeting the country’s defence needs and in advancing India’s self-sufficiency in defence production.

Body

In the rapidly changing global defence landscape, it is important for these PSUs to improve their efficiency and performance to remain relevant and competitive.

Here are some key reasons why this is necessary:

• Changing Technologies: With rapid advancements in technology, there is a need for India’s defence PSUs to keep pace with these changes. This requires investment in research and development, adoption of new technologies, and upskilling of employees.
• Failure to do so could result in a loss of competitiveness, as foreign companies with more advanced technologies could outcompete these PSUs.
• Cost Efficiency: India’s defence PSUs have often been criticized for their high costs of production. This is a major challenge, as defence budgets are often limited, and the government needs to ensure that it gets the best value for money.
• Improving efficiency and reducing costs can help these PSUs remain competitive and better meet the needs of the Indian armed forces.
• Competition from Private Sector: In recent years, the Indian government has been promoting greater involvement of the private sector in defence production.
• This has led to increased competition, and defence PSUs need to improve their performance to stay relevant in this changing landscape.
• Need for Export Competitiveness: With the Indian government’s push towards ‘Make in India’, there is a need for India’s defence PSUs to be export competitive. This requires them to meet international quality standards, reduce costs, and improve delivery timelines.
• Failure to do so could result in missed opportunities to export defence equipment and generate revenue.

Conclusion

We require investment in research and development, adoption of new technologies, upskilling of employees, cost efficiency, and export competitiveness. These efforts will not only benefit these PSUs but also help meet the defence needs of the country and generate employment opportunities.