How is India's defence preparedness in 2021?

The Union government has hiked modernisation budget by close to 19 per cent, which will essentially be spent for country's defence preparedness.

Capital outlay has increased to Rs 1,35,061 crore from Rs 1,13,734 crore, which is over 18.50 per cent to previous budget. It means armed forces will get Rs 21,326 crore more than last year to purchase several critical equipment including armoured vehicles, assault rifles and missiles to counter Chinese aggression.

Defence budget, which is over 13 per cent of the total budget, is also 2.15 per cent of the country's GDP.

However, the biggest challenge India's military faces today is monetary in times of acute indigence and a shrunken economy, hammered further by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Even in fiscal year 2020-21, when the economy faced none of the prevailing daunting challenges, the Centre was unable to meet the military's monetary demands, leaving a gap of Rs 1,03,535 crore between their requirements and the eventual budgetary allocation.

Without doubt, the military's monetary requirements will be substantially higher in the coming fiscal, adding to the government's woes in the forthcoming financial year. Until now, India got its Tavor X 95 rifles from the Israel Weapons Industry (IWI). Now, these guns are being made in India and being supplied to the central and state forces. India's Ministry of Defence awarded a ₹48,000 crore contract to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to supply 83 light combat aircraft (LCA) Mk-1A jets - also called Tejas fighters - to the Indian Air Force.

The Defence Ministry has also cleared the induction of 118 Arjun Mark-1A tanks into the Indian Army. Their cumulative value is around ₹8,400 crores.

India has signed a $200 million contract with Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence System for SPICE guided bombs.

The grey area to replace the outdated carbines is finalized. The AK-203, one of the latest products designed and manufactured by Russia's Kalashnikov Concern was selected, and in January 2019, an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) was signed between India and Russia. The Indo-Russia Rifles Private Limited was then set-up as a joint venture between OFB (with a 50.5 percent majority stake), Kalashnikov (42 percent), and Rosoboronexport (7.5 percent), Russia's state-owned defence export agency, under which the rifles would be manufactured at the Korwa Ordnance Factory in Amethi district of Uttar Pradesh.

Under the Indian government's plan, to fulfill the requirement of 770,000 AK-203 rifles, the first 100,000 units would be imported from Russia, and the rest would be manufactured at the Korwa facility. Each imported rifle was expected to be around $ 1,100, including the cost related to the transfer of technology and setting up of the manufacturing factory. As negotiations progressed, it was reported that differences have emerged over the amount of royalty being asked by Russia, US$ 200 per rifle or US$ 130 million for 650,000 units to be produced in India.