India to ramp up defense production in military modernization drive
India has set an ambitious $31 billion defense production target to be reached by 2029 as the South Asian nation embarks on a military modernization drive by leveraging its growing manufacturing power.
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh also set a $5 billion export goal for the country’s arms industry, up about 30% from the financial year ended March.
The domestic defense production push is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make-in-India policy. India’s defense production increased from $4.9 billion in the 2015-15 financial year, when Modi first came to power, to $18.8 billion in the financial year ended March. The new goal requires a 65% growth from the current numbers.
India, which accounts for an 8.2% share of total global defense imports, is the world’s second-largest arms importer after Ukraine.
New Delhi’s military modernization drive coincides with a new defense pact between archrival Pakistan, Türkiye, Qatar, and Indonesia. Experts have said that the Badr pact is likely to pull together the military funding and technological prowess of its signatories, though it is not exactly a NATO-style military alliance.
Singh on Tuesday vowed to empower India’s armed forces with the new technologies required to win modern wars and deal with emerging security challenges, citing the $23.16 billion outlay for modernization and procurement in the federal budget.
“Adequate funding, effective utilization of resources, and prioritization of the (armed) services’ critical requirements were essential to strengthening military capabilities,” he said at a defense panel meeting on military modernization.
The meeting also stressed the need to tap artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, unmanned platforms, cyber, space, electronic warfare, and advanced communications to come out on top in future conflicts.
