As Nirmala Sitharaman becomes the first woman Defence Minister of the country, she faces the challenge of sustaining the pace of modernisation of the armed forces. She also has a big responsibility of making sure that the country becomes a major hub for Defence manufacturing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly stressed on his Government’s ‘Make in India’ policy to enable the private and public sector companies to produce world class weapons including fighter jets, warships, submarines and sophisticated artillery guns.
At present, India imports more than 70 per cent of its weapons from various countries like Russia, US, Israel, France and UK and the present political dispensation is determined to reduce import by promoting self reliance. Expected to formally take charge of the Ministry next week, Sitharaman will have to hit the ground running to implement the policies pertaining to ‘Make in India.’
The NDA Government has cleared defence projects worth over `2 lakh crores since it came to power in 2014 and the new Minister will have to ensure that these projects take off. These include the project worth over `60,000 crores to build six submarines in India and implementing the Strategic Partnership, cleared few months back, in letter and spirit thereby giving a fillip to the Indian private industry to tie up with foreign vendors to manufacture sophisticated weapon systems. She will also have to make sure that the mega deal worth over seven billion Euros for procuring 36 Rafale fighter jets from France, also fructifies as per the mutually agreed time lines.As regards operational preparedness, Sitharaman will urgently have to sort out critical shortage of weapons and ammunition. The Army has arms and ammunition only for ten days to fight an intense war and the Comptroller and Auditor General(CAG) in its tabled in monsoon session of Parliament also expressed concern over this state of affairs. In fact, Sitharaman’s colleague V K Singh had also sounded the alarm four years back as the Army Chief when he wrote a letter to the political leadership in this regard.
Reacting to her alleviation, the 58-year-old Minister, an alumna of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University said “somebody who has come from a small town, grown into the party with all the support of the leadership, and if given such responsibility, it just makes you feel sometimes that cosmic grace is there. Otherwise, it is impossible.” Outgoing Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said “I am sure, now that I have an extremely competent successor in Nirmala Sitharaman, she will carry the road forward.”
She hails from Madurai, Tamil Nadu.The new Minister will have to make sure that a crucial decision announced on August 30 to enhance the combat capability of the Indian Army by redeploying more than 57,000 officers and men for operational role is implemented as per schedule