NEW DELHI: India’s showpiece defence exhibition, DefExpo that used to attract global vendors of military equipment in large numbers, is losing its lustre. The latest edition, DefExpo 2018 to be held from April 11 to 18 at Thiruvidanthai on the East Coast Road near Chennai, is seeing the number of firms drop by nearly a third since the last edition in 2016.India is ranked the world’s top arms importer and the Defence Ministry claimed on Wednesday that Indian firms manufactured Rs 55,000 crore of military equipment in the last year.
The huge arms buys that India has projected was the chief attraction for foreign vendors. Next week’s Defexpo, to be inaugurated first by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman on April 11 and the next day by PM Narendra Modi, indicates a waning interest because of tardy acquisition processes. The armed forces, in a report released by Parliament last month, said there were shortfalls across nearly all platforms that needed to be made up urgently.
DefExpo, held once every two years in February, used to be held in New Delhi till 2014 when it was moved by then defence minister Manohar Parrikar to Goa where he promised a permanent venue. Now defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman has taken it to Tamil Nadu.
“The participation of foreign defence manufacturers has dipped by at least 10 per cent. But the number of Indian manufacturers has increased,” said the defence production secretary, Ajay Kumar, at a curtain-raiser in New Delhi on Wednesday.
But back-of-the envelope calculations easily show that the number of companies that have opted out or have chosen not to participate is much more. An official release in March 2016 said there were more than 1,000 companies, both foreign and Indian that participated in Defexpo that year.
On Wednesday, Defence Ministry said a total of 671 exhibitors booked space this year— 517 Indian companies and 154 international exhibitors.
Participation of foreign defence manufacturers have dipped by at least 10 per cent,” additional secretary defence production Subash Chandra admitted.The Ministry claimed many firsts for the Defexpo this year — among them the attendance of the PM who would boost his ‘Make in India’ initiative.
Also, there would be ‘live demonstrations’ by Indian Navy warships at sea, visible from the coast, by the Indian army at the venue. An India-South Korea joint commission would be meeting in New Delhi in the run-up to the exhibition. An India-Russia military-industry cooperation meeting would be held at the Defexpo venue on April 13.