India imports spare parts worth around Rs 100,000 crores every year for the defence sector. There are over 450,000 different types of spare parts required for the defence sector equipment like tanks, heavy air weapon systems, electronic and engineering equipments. Right now the Indian defence forces are running short of spare parts because suppliers abroad have stopped manufacturing them.
Thus the India Army honchos want to build up domestic weapon manufacturing capabilities and majorly cut down dependence on the international players. What is significant is that the Army is looking to build up manufacturing expertise of weaponry through Indian MSMEs and is ready to provide various types of technical and financial assistance to these MSMEs. The defence triumvirate of the country — the Indian Army, Indian Air Force and Navy depend on Russia and other countries for spare parts of helicopters, airplanes, weapons and other defence machinery.
At present less than one percent of the total inventory is indigenous, thus the potential to scale up manufacturing is immense. Companies like Tata and L & T are already providing different products to the army. The Air Force requires aviation spare parts of international standards in huge numbers.
