Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Upendra Dwivedi on Wednesday said that the country’s indigenous production capabilities are increasing, including in the field of drones, and the desire is to have 100 pc of equipment production in India eventually, even if it takes a few years.
“See, India follows Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the world is one family… This and atmanirbharta (self-reliance) both have to combine. Finally, our desire is to have 100 pc equipment production in India. But it doesn’t mean it has to happen today. It can happen after three years, five years, ten years,” Gen Dwivedi told ANI in an exclusive interview.
He said more and more indigenous systems are being produced.
General Dwivedi said that equipment is also being bought from abroad but there is effort to produce alternatives in India.
“As of today, there are 40 companies in India which are making this (loitering munition). And approximately Rs 900 crore worth of equipment has been bought (loitering equipment). Research and Development when you do it, you want to put that cost also as part of the sale price,” he said.
General Dwivedi said the required critical components are bought from abroad ensuring security protocols. “But over a period of time, we are also looking at alternatives to that to be produced in India,” he said.
In a major success for Indigenous weapon systems, the Indian Army received a supply of 480 loitering munitions made by a Nagpur-based defence manufacturing firm with over 75 percent Indigenous content in December last year. The first indigenous Loiter Munition, Nagastra-1 has been developed by Solar Industries in Nagpur.
Loitering munitions are unmanned aerial vehicles which can be used against tanks, other battle equipment and enemy personnel during warfare. Unmanned aerial equipment also helps locate enemy assets.
“Let’s say a hill is in between, so you fire from here, it goes across, sees the tank, and thereafter, you can say, okay, this is the tank you need to destroy,” Gen Dwivedi said.
Answering another query, he said while a “reservist” system is not suitable for the defence forces, the Agniveer scheme works well.
The Government launched Agnipath scheme on June 15, 2022 to recruit both male and female aspirants into ‘below the officer’s rank’ cadre of the three services for a period of four years. Candidates between the age group of 17.5 to 21 years are eligible to apply for the scheme. These Agniveers undergo optimised basic military training and specialised trade training followed by up-skilling courses, as required. About 25 per cent of the personnel inducted are retained for Army service for a further 15 years.
The Army Chief said that Agniveers, when they go back after four years in the Army for other opportunities available to them, including in central armed police forces, they become responsible citizens.
“Earlier, there used to be a system of reservists. Over a period of time we realized reservist is not working that much. Now what is Agniveer? You train for four years, thereafter you are available. Home Minister himself has said that they will be absorbing a large number of Agniveers, even state police forces. It’s a 12 lakh army, also Air force, Navy, CAPFs…as far as the numbers are concerned, we have got adequate. So Agniveer will be an add-on,” he said.
General Dwivedi also spoke about the changes in the pattern of wars over the years.
“There are five generations of warfare, starting from trench warfare. Then we had the machine guns and artillery. Then we have the manoeuvre warfare, the non-state actors came in. The fifth generation is Artificial Intelligence, quantum, and thereafter, cyberspace. In Indian conditions, I have to cater for all five generations.
So as you find in the last stage, that the fifth stage which is there, this young generation will play a very important role. The trench warfare is not going away. The machine guns and artillery are not going away. So I have to cater for this also,” General Dwivedi said.
The Chief of Army Staff also stressed the need for availability and access to rare earth minerals used in making chips, which have multifarious uses.
“If it’s a monopoly, what will happen? Denial for others will take place. And denial of facilities and services for others will create a problem for their fighting capability.
We are now trying to make sure that we should be Atmanirbhar in these things also. So, it’s high time that the like-minded people should get together and approach those countries that look, we need to carry out trading in this aspect also,” he said.
The Army Chief also touched on the force harnessing use of AI and said that in order to further enhance the connect with the veterans and Veer Naris, a customised bilingual messaging Chatbot SAMBANDH, based on Whatsapp, has been developed
He said this will provide one-on-one communication to capture queries and grievances and also disseminate relevant information.
“As far as AI is concerned, I keep saying that data is very important. First thing what we’re doing is the data is lying in various corners, various headquarters, so we are integrating those data, even if you’re not able to integrate, they should be able to talk to each other. We have reached that stage. Today, I can go in for the predictive analysis, even if it is not new,” he said.
