Know your Ministry - No. 13 - Defence

The Government of India ensures the defence of the country and this responsibility rests with the Cabinet and is discharged through the Ministry of Defence. The Supreme Command of the Armed Forces vests in the President and the Defence Minister is the head of the Ministry of Defence assisted by a Minister of State. The principal task of the Defence Ministry is to obtain policy directions of the Government on all defence and security related matters and communicate them for implementation to the Services Headquarters, Inter-Services Organisations, Production Establishments and Research and Development. The Defence Secretary under the Ministry functions as Head of the Department of Defence and is additionally responsible for co-ordinating the activities of the five other major Departments in the Ministry.

The principal task of the Ministry is to frame policy directions on defence and security related matters and communicate them for implementation to the Services Headquarters, Inter-Service Organisations, Production Establishments and Research & Development Organisations. It is required to ensure effective implementation of the Government's policy directions and the execution of approved programmes within the allocated resources under five major Departments viz, Department of Defence, Department of Defence Production, Department of Defence Research and Development, Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare and Department of Military Affairs. 

PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE IN PUBLIC DOMAIN

Annual Reports (2018-19), Sainik Samachar (March 16-31), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Newsletter, Defence Intellectual Proprietary Rights Policy, Technology Perspective and Capability Road Map (2018) and Report on Measures for reducing Litigation and Public Grievances (2015), Ministry of Defence Acts & Rules, Manuals under Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP), Reports of the Committee of Experts for DPP, Defence Procurement Manual and the Defence Production Policy.

CHALLENGES BEFORE THE MINISTRY

Defence Ministry that gets allocated with an annual budget of more than Rs 4 lakh crore runs the 1.3 million third largest army in the world with 0.5 million civilians, but also large number of public sector enterprises like Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), Mazagon Dockyards Ltd, 42 ordnance factories, 52 laboratories, dozens of associate organisations, training institutes and academic institutions. Reforming the Defence Research and Development Organisation. Hence the immediate challenge are:

• Modernisation of defence forces, higher defence management, Integration of MoD, streamlining procurement procedures to fill up deficiencies of arms, ammunition weapons and equipment, private sector participation and formulation of national security strategy.
• Lack of Dynamism in the Modernisation of Defence forces due to Ill-conceived and poorly executed indigenous research and development and production programmes that trigger acquisition delays which cannot be met by imports due to crunch in resources and unscientific allocation funds in the Defence Budget resulting in failure to meet the deadlines that often ends up technology becoming stale and outdated.
• Failure to push Military reforms for over last three decades that resulted in all our major enemies like China able to enlarge its defence capabilities gaining upperhand at some point or other.
• International Terrorism being the major causative factor for establishment of Global peace.
• Effective co-ordination with External Affairs Ministry with regard to foreign policy related to relationship with all neighbours.
• Identification of defence strategic locations to enhance the security of the territory.
• Establishment of a robust global platform to regularly publish about the correct border and territory of the country and legally demolish all false propaganda claims of our land at the International Court of Justice.
• Maintenance of utmost confidentiality in the global community about our Defence capabilities by increase in production of all major defence equipment’s through indigenous resources engaging the latest technology through dynamic policy on Research framework.
• Elimination of excessive redtapism and duplication or multiplication of core tasks by optimizing technical manpower resources. A reform agenda should be aimed at cutting bureaucratic delay in functioning, making available resources and adding both capacity and capabilities to address all the serious strategic shortfalls of some of the Armed Forces.
• Lack of measure of productivity in terms of core military operational functions and routine back-end Administrative tasks that results in delay in procurement and production.
• Failure to establish or recapture the lost territories to the enemy nations who have illegally occupied or captured due to their enlarged military presence in our land across the borders.  

WAY FORWARD

• Immediate need for implementation of Defence Reforms for Improved Defence Planning and Accountability of Head of Defence Organisation & Ministry of Defence.
• Restructuring of Defence Forces through judicial mix of Civilian and Military Administration.
• Mitigation of Cyber Security Risks at large scale and periodical review and audit of Security Threats and Intelligence Agencies.
• Ill-conceived and poorly executed indigenous research and development and production programmes trigger acquisition delays which cannot be met by imports because of resource constraints and funds crunch.
• Defence of Nation will no more a question of any physical security offensive or defensive using Armed Forces, MOD should explore or launch a separate department to counter all virtual and bio warfare attacks by enemies. In other words, hitherto Defence which is now confined only under the three major Forces viz Army, Navy and Airforce, two other major Forces like Department of Bio Warfare and Department of Cyber Intelligence should be formed and function independently as a part of Organisation set-up.
• Enhance the operational efficiency of both Administration and Operational personnel both in the Civil and Military ranks to ensure the core fields under hard areas are adequately manned with backup strength on rotation under a minimum frequency period.
• Engagement and integration of expertise of all active Defence Analysts/Strategists, Bureaucrats, Defence officers, Scientists, etc having field experience and work exposure on the enemy’s land who can share and guide in the task of decision making for Defence Plan, Policy and Implementation including production and procurement of resources.

Our long-terms Defence strategies are mainly oriented with the sole objective to realize and achieve a globally No-war entity of this planet under a new World Order. Using all global resources at its command coupled with amicable relationships with all peace loving nations, its time to launch a global mission of World against Terrorism to establish World Peace integrating all third world nations above politics or personal supremacy of individuals to ensure that resources spent are channelized for development of Mankind as a whole.