Delays and cost overruns in India’s defence procurement are not isolated bureaucratic mishaps. They reveal a deeper flaw in the structure of the country’s acquisition machinery — the absence of clear, enforceable accountability.
For all the rhetoric of Make in India, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX), India’s procurement ecosystem continues to be driven more by procedure than performance. The Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) enshrines process sanctity, but not outcome responsibility. File movement, approvals, and committees often substitute for measurable delivery.
Why does no one take responsibility when defence projects fail?
India’s procurement network stretches across ministries, directorates, public sector undertakings (PSUs), and testing agencies — each with a role, none with ownership. This diffusion of responsibility has bred a culture where procedural compliance outweighs mission success.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has repeatedly found that more than 60% of major defence projects suffer delays of one to seven years. Yet few of these failures lead to internal reform or penalties. The result is systemic inertia: a cycle where missed deadlines and budget overruns are treated as routine.
PSUs remain at the centre of this dysfunction. Reviews of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have shown chronic lags in aircraft delivery, from the Tejas fighter to Sukhoi-30 upgrades. Private firms, meanwhile, face hurdles from restrictive qualification norms and erratic order pipelines. The state sector is shielded from commercial consequences, while the private sector is left on the margins despite efficiency gains.
The imbalance perpetuates an output gap: PSUs that miss deadlines retain contracts; private players that deliver faster struggle for access. Without accountability that extends across the industrial base, inefficiency becomes institutionalised.
How can India fix its weakest link — the testing and feedback chain?
A less visible source of delay lies within the testing and certification labyrinth. The Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA) and allied agencies operate in procedural silos, often out of sync with production schedules. The Dhanush artillery gun, for instance, faced years of delay due to overlapping trials and certification hurdles even after user acceptance.
Other countries have moved towards concurrent engineering — integrating testing, certification, and production to reduce friction. The United States and the United Kingdom link vendor payments and project extensions to clear accountability clauses. India, by contrast, retains a sequential model that multiplies bottlenecks.
The Indian Army, the end user of most acquisitions, is drawn into the process too late. Its feedback arrives at the user trial stage, by which point both cost and design rigidity prevent meaningful correction. Institutionalising early user participation — as co-designer, not just tester — would align projects with operational needs and reduce costly redesign cycles.
The Integrated Capability Development Plan (ICDP) was meant to bridge this gap but remains inconsistently applied. Real reform would empower integrated programme offices, bringing together military, scientific, and industrial stakeholders with defined mandates and measurable targets.
India’s defence readiness now depends on redesigning its procurement DNA. Accountability cannot remain an afterthought enforced through audits; it must be built into contracts, governance, and project design. Transparent public dashboards, performance-linked incentives, and ownership for every delay or escalation could transform the system from process-driven to outcome-driven.
Until accountability becomes as fundamental as budget or policy, India’s indigenisation goals will remain aspirations — and its armed forces will continue to wait for systems that exist more on paper than in service.