Armed forces top brass back PM’s call for adopting indigenous weapons

GANDHINAGAR: The top brass of the three defence forces, including the chiefs of the Indian Army and Indian Air Force, on Wednesday backed the call made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to use indigenous weapon systems for fighting wars of the future.

The fourth defence force, the Indian Coast Guard, also backed make in India call by Prime Minister as its chief Virendra Singh Pathania said the maritime force was ready for 100 per cent indigenous future including its weaponry, surface ships and helicopters along with fixed winged aircraft to meet the security challenges.

Speaking to ANI at DefExpo-2022, held exclusively for Indian companies in the defence sector, Indian Army chief Gen Manoj Pande categorically said, “We can absolutely and undoubtedly win the wars of the future with indigenous weapon systems.”

Lauding the work done by the domestic industry so far, the Army chief said, “Whatever has been produced ingeniously is as good as what is available in the world market.” He said the Russia-Ukraine conflict has given us “profound lessons, told us ‘you need to be self-reliant and not depend on any global supply chains to the extent possible’.”

Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhari also agreed that the induction of indigenous weapon systems was the only way to remain self-reliant in times of conflict.

Asked if the IAF was confident or fighting future wars with indigenous weapons, he said, “We have to keep taking these big strides to reach this ultimate goal and we have got a long-term and immediate plan towards meeting requirements of all weapon systems through indigenous production.”

Navy Vice Chief Vice Admiral Satish Guormade told ANI, “This vision of the Prime Minister can be achieved very much the way this DefExpo is being organized and the progress made in last two to three years in this direction.” He said the weapon systems produced by the domestic industry are yielding good results and are proving their mettle in service and BrahMos supersonic cruise missile was not one such example.

The Navy Vice Chief said the Indian Navy was fully supportive of the Make in India in the defence initiative of the Prime Minister and is working round the clock to implement it in the service.

Army chief Gen Pande said that in the makes II category, the Indian Army has 43 projects, in which about 187 industries are participating. These amount to Rs 27,000 crore and largely pertain to improving intelligence, and surveillance capabilities. The army is also looking at projects in artificial intelligence.

He said all new ingeniously developed technology has performed well in our forward areas. The advantage of all this being indigenous is sustenance becomes easier.

The IAF chief listed the Indigenous trainer aircraft HTT-40, which was unveiled by PM Modi at the DefExpo, saying that it will meet future requirements. “We have a new generation of Akash missiles. We’ve long-term and immediate plans to fulfill requirements of weapon systems through indigenous sources,” he said. (ANI)