The challenge before Manohar Parrikar

The biggest challenge before Manohar Parrikar, tipped to be India’s new Defence Minister, will be to make the decision-making process quicker.

Defence projects and procurement involve dealing with influential countries and strong corporate lobbies, and the money at stake is huge. “Hope Parrikar doesn’t end up like his counterpart in the previous regime who refrained from taking strong decisions in order to protect his reputation,” said a senior government official who did not wish to be identified.

Lobby effect

But Parrikar is not new to dealing with corporate lobbies. As Goa Chief Minister, the 58-year-old has dealt with mining and liquor barons. The pressure as Defence Minister, however, is likely to be much more intense, especially with the Modi Government recently raising the FDI cap to 49 per cent.

Parrikar was expected to join the Modi Government from Day 1. But he had told

BusinessLine earlier that he was happy in his own space.

‘Nation comes first’

On what changed in the past few months, Parrikar remained politically correct on Sunday, the day of his swearing-in as a Cabinet Minster, and only said: “The nation comes first.”

Parrikar, as the Defence Minister, is acceptable to most in the Government as he comes with strong technical backing – an IIT degree. Parrikar told BusinessLine that his approach will be to take quick decisions while taking stakeholders along to get fair results. “Defence is a technology driven sector, and a minister having sound footing on technical matters is an asset,” said a senior official.

Fast decision making is required as ‘equipment become obsolete fast’, said an official. Another challenge before the new minister will the issue of middlemen in defence deals.

Recently, the VVIP chopper deal had shown how powerful the lobbies are in the sector. While agents are banned from the sector, the fact remains that it has been dominated by four-five big players who call themselves consultants/agents and facilitate deals for foreign and domestic entities.

“Competition is such in defence procurement that big nations — the US, the EU, South Africa and Israel — are also very aggressive in lobbying for their companies,” another source said.

“It is a tough call for a minister.”