Amidst the antics of China-Pakistan, India added dangerous weapons to its fleet, purchased military equipment worth Rs 1.93 lakh crore in 5 years

India bought military hardware worth Rs 1.9 lakh crore (about $24 billion) from countries like the US, Russia, France, Israel and Spain in the last five years. Military hardware included helicopters, aircraft radars, rockets, guns, assault rifles, missiles and ammunition. Minister of State for Defense Ajay Bhatt told the Lok Sabha that India has signed 264 capital acquisition contracts for military equipment since 2017-2018, including 88 deals with foreign vendors, accounting for 36% of the total value.

Purchases from foreign vendors were Rs 30,677 crore in 2017-18, Rs 38,116 crore in 2018-19, Rs 40,330 crore in 2019-20, Rs 43,916 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 40,840 crore in 2021-22. The Rs 59,000 crore deal with France for 36 Rafale fighter jets, which was signed in September 2016, does not figure in the list.

Defense Acquisition Procedure-2020 introduces major policy initiatives to enhance indigenous defense capability and reduce import dependence with focus on ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’. Further, DAP-2020 accords top priority to ‘Indian Buy’ category of acquisitions and ‘Global Buy’ is permitted only in exceptional circumstances with specific approval of Defense Acquisition Council or Defense Minister. He also said that DRDO is working on 55 ‘Mission Mode’ projects at a total approved cost of Rs 73,943 crore. These projects are nuclear defense technologies, air-independent propulsion for submarines, combat suits, torpedoes, fighter aircraft, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, gas turbine engines, assault rifles, warheads, light machine guns, rockets, artillery gun systems, infantry The army has combat vehicles, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, anti-airfield weapons and glide bombs.