Ajay Banerjee
New Delhi, February 3
India’s import of military equipment is slowing down for the first time in three years. Military equipment acquisition is done under what is called the capital budget and is meant for payment of weapons, equipment, planes, warships, submarines, helicopters, etc.
The immediate impact of imports coming down could be due to policies of curbing imports and relying more on ‘Make in India’. The data on imports of the five-year period from 2017-18 to 2021-22 was tabled in Parliament today.
In the period of five years, imports grew for three consecutive financial years (2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21) and showed a downward trend in 2021-22.
The increase may be largely due to payment for the Rafale fighter jets and the high value items like surveillance planes, specialised submarine hunting helicopters besides emergency purchases.
In March 2022, Sweden-based think tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its assessment for a five-year period (2017-2021). Titled “Trends in international arms transfers-2021”, the report stated, “India was the world’s largest importer of weapons and military equipment and accounted for 11% of total global arms imports in the period.”
The SIPRI report had a good news too. It compared two five-year blocks — between 2012-16 and 2017-21 and said Indian arms imports decreased by 21% during 2017-21 when compared with the previous five-year block.
Importantly, to curb imports, United States, Russia, France and Israel, the countries that have been supplying weapons and military equipment in the past decade, have been told that these will have to be ‘Made in India’ in future.
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