After being a major importer for decades, the Indian Armed Forces is slowly moving towards self-reliance. Be it ATAGS, Pinaka MBRL, Tejas, Prachand and many more, India is drastically reducing its reliance on foreign suppliers.
Apart from providing weapons to the Indian Armed Forces and security forces, India is now considering exporting its indigenous equipment. We already know India is in negotiations to sell Tejas to Egypt. It already inked a deal with Armenia to sell Pinaka and with Vietnam to sell Brahmos.
Taking a big step in exporting indigenous equipment, India is conducting Defence Expo in Gandhinagar, where over 1340 Indian companies are showcasing their products to visitors.
With the theme, “Path to Pride”, the Expo is exclusive only to Indian companies, thus showing the capabilities of the Indian Defence industry.
The 12th edition is said to be the largest of all expos and is held at over 1 lakh square meters.
Apart from the expo, India is also organizing two conclaves namely, India Africa Defence dialogue and Indian Ocean Region plus conclave, through which India is working on stretching its defence sales into the African region and other parts of the Indian ocean.
Indian Defence Industry has seen an unprecedented change in recent years. With the participation of private industries, India is steadily developing its indigenous weapons.
Apart from indigenous development, India is also working on collaborating with other countries for a Joint Venture. The highly anticipated manufacturing of the AK-203 rifle is said to commence by this year ending in Uttar Pradesh.
After the clashes with China, India has been focusing on upgrading its age-old weapons. It is replacing INSAS rifles with AK-203, Mig, Mirage and Jaguar fighter jets with Tejas, and is working on building jointness among the Armed Forces.
This reliance on indigenous weapons has boosted confidence to supply to other countries. With the Russia-Ukraine war, several countries are facing issues which are relying on America, Russia and European countries.
Since these countries are not in a position to deliver as promised to the developing countries, India is working on replacing them with its own weapons. If India succeeds in establishing itself as a reliable weapons supplier, it can become a major wing in boosting India’s economy.
