Army is buying foreign rifles… CEO of the indigenous company expressed displeasure and asked- where is the Make in India program?

The Indian government is buying 73 thousand more SIG716 assault rifles for the Indian Army. It is manufactured by the American-Switzerland company Sig Sauer. Vivek Krishnan, CEO of India’s indigenous weapon manufacturing company SSS Defence, seems quite angry about this. He has questioned this decision of the government by tweeting. He has asked where is the Make in India program?

Let’s know what he has written on his X handle…

On this X handle dated 28th August, he wrote that… since a day before, people have been asking me about my opinion on the acquisition of SIG716i. Well… we knew this was going to happen. So we got down to work. But some things should be said clearly…

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1. I wanted the government not to buy it anymore. The government should have approached Indian companies. Rifles with Indian design should have been bought. This would have inspired the country’s companies to make good rifles. He also said that the rifles already in service should have been compared to see if there is a need to buy new rifles.

2. This time the deal has been done. We cannot do anything. But we will not give up. We will emerge as the most powerful in this business. We will have weapons of every caliber. The person using it will be in uniform. Now we will go global.

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3. Where is ‘Make in India’ for defence in the country? Some people are doing good work in the field of small arms. They have commitment. Only patience is needed. Only a fool can imagine defence without indigenous weapons. Neighbouring countries will have to come and buy weapons from us.

4. Should we take pride in Indian things? We lost this pride by making poor weapons in government companies. But private companies are doing good work now. They are gaining pride. It is difficult to make good weapons and get them accepted, but we have learnt this by going global. We do not get respect in our own country, but our counterparts abroad respect us. This is a matter of self-respect.

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5. And now the last point… This is a challenge, when our buyers have been telling us that our metallurgy is deficient or our design is weak. I say pit our indigenous weapons against global standards in every caliber. Test them. Put the results out in the open, publicly. Just like real armies do. Test protocols are clearly defined. This will be best for both sides. How difficult is it to do?