Chandigarh: The Ministry of Defence’s (MoDs) recent signing of two contracts worth Rs 4,666 crore – for 425,000 indigenously produced close-quarter battle carbines for the Army and 48 imported heavyweight torpedoes (HWTs) for Indian Navy diesel-electric submarines – has been widely touted as a step towards plugging critical capability gaps.Yet behind the self-congratulatory December 30 announcement lies a harsher truth: both acquisitions were defined not by efficiency or foresight, but by chronic delay, serial cancellations, and institutional drift that converted routine capability requirements into decade-long fiascos.The consequences of these interminable deferments stretched well beyond bureaucratic embarrassment. Faced with glaring capability gaps, India’s armed forces were forced to improvise – soldiers on counter-insurgency deployments without modern carbines, and submarines constrained by outdated torpedoes – while adversaries modernised unhindered, turning India’s delays into clear advantage for them.“The cumulative effect of such inefficiency was perpetuated by the chalta hai (everything goes) insouciance of the MoD as well as the services,” said a two-star Indian Army infantry veteran. That these shortcomings persisted for years, even as threats proliferated, reflected a failure of responsibility that no serious military should accept or tolerate, he added, declining to be named.The toll of prolonged delay and indecisionOn December 30, the MoD grandly announced that it had signed contracts worth Rs 2,770 crores with Bharat Forge Limited (BFL) and PLR Systems – a joint venture between the Adani Group and Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) – for the supply of 425,000 carbines to the Indian Army and Indian Navy. Of this total, BFL is to manufacture 60% of the total order – or 255,128 5.56×45 mm carbine – and PLR Systems, the remaining 169,872 units.The scale of the order cannot obscure that it concludes one of the Indian Army’s longest-running small-arms procurement sagas. Spanning nearly a quarter-century, it was marked by tenders floated and scrapped, ‘fast-track’ acquisitions announced then abandoned, and a series of interim fixes, substituting for durable solutions, which ended up failing operationally.Alongside this, the MoD disclosed that it had inked a second contract worth Rs 1,896 crore with Italy’s Whitehead Alenia Sistemi Subacquei (WASS) Submarine Systems S.R.L for the procurement and integration of 48 HWTs and associated equipment to arm the Indian Navy’s six French-origin Kalvari (Scorpène)-class diesel-electric submarines, licence-built domestically.Ironically, these are the same Black Shark WASS torpedoes originally selected over a decade ago – when the Indian Navy’s requirement was for 98 units – before the entire contract was abruptly scrapped in 2016 following unproven corruption allegations.That the requirement has now effectively been halved, even as operational demands have grown, underscores the toll of prolonged delay and indecision. Costs have risen sharply as well, with inflation, renegotiation, and currency fluctuations inflating the price far beyond the original contract, leaving the Indian Navy paying a steep premium for capability it should have acquired years earlier.The carbine chronicle is especially revealing, as it shows how, for over two decades, the Indian Army struggled to replace its aging 9mm 1A1/2A1 submachine guns – locally produced versions of the 1940s British L2A3 Sterling – highlighting the systemic delays and stopgap solutions that have long plagued small-arms procurement. For several decades, these two submachine gun variants were licence-built by the erstwhile Small Arms Factory at Kanpur, part of the former state-run Ordnance Factory Board, but their manufacture had ceased altogether on grounds of obsolescence by the early 2000s.Soon after, the Indian Army resorted to a familiar stopgap: it pressed into service a shortened variant of the locally developed 5.56×45 mm Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) assault rifle, an exercise in jugaad or innovation that only highlighted the weapon’s unsuitability for specialised close-quarter roles in counterinsurgency (COIN) and related operations.Procurement in limboA succession of infantry officers repeatedly noted that the INSAS substitute was ill-suited for close-quarter combat. Its long barrel, overall length, and weight made manoeuvring in confined spaces cumbersome, while the lack of a folding stock or compact configuration hindered rapid movement and target engagement in dense urban or indoor environments. But despite these clear limitations, improvised INSAS variants remained in widespread service for years – and in some units, persist even today even though this weapon was discontinued 2010 onwards.Eventually, in 2002-03, the Indian Army floated its first global tender for 44,618 5.56×45 mm CQB carbines with under-barrel grenade launcher compatibility. Trials involved major international manufacturers, including USAs Colt, Italy’s Beretta, and IWI. But after extensive evaluations across diverse terrains – from Mhow to Rajasthan, Punjab, and high-altitude regions in Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh – lasting four years, the procurement was terminated in 2007-08, ostensibly due to over-ambitious Qualitative Requirements, particularly the insistence on add-ons such as thermal-designated laser sights.A follow-on request for proposal issued in December 2010 met a similar fate. After another three-year trial cycle, the process collapsed in 2013 over a minor safety feature: a small screw-type component designed to make sights “eye-safe” during low-intensity engagements.Although the feature was not specified in the original tender, a senior Army committee failed to resolve the discrepancy, leading to its cancellation despite worsening insurgency in Kashmir and rising troop casualties. Industry sources later noted that the tender was scrapped solely because the safety feature had not been formally mandated, despite it offering protection.In March 2018, the MoD issued yet another request for proposal – its third in a decade – for 93,895 carbines. The UAE-based Caracal CAR 816 emerged successful and was cleared for procurement under the Fast Track Procedure, having outperformed the rival F60 carbine, fielded by Thales of Australia, in trials.In keeping with the Defence Procurement Procedure, all Fast Track Procedure purchases are mandated for completion within 12 months of the acquisition being launched. In this instance, the CAR 816 carbines contract, worth around $110 million, was scheduled for completion, including deliveries, by around August 2019.However, no deal was signed, and the procurement remained in limbo for another 11 months, till September 2020, when senior MoD officers expressed unspecified reservations over confirming the carbine tender and mulled ditching it entirely. This was despite the successful completion of multiple technical and field trial procedures and cost negotiations in which the CAR816 emerged as L1, or the lowest bidder.“Processing the carbine via FTP [Fast Track Procedure] acknowledged operational urgency, but even that was inexplicably blocked,” said a senior Army officer associated with the case. But no explanations were forthcoming from the MoD, he said, requesting anonymity. It was arbitrarily terminated.Thereafter, the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) in Pune, designed the Joint Venture Protective Carbine (JVPC) in collaboration with BFL, as part of a public-private partnership, under the MoD’s Atmanirbharata or self-reliance rubric.This gas-operated JVPC is what BFL will be manufacturing 225,128 units of as part of the MoD’s recently awarded contract. Weighing about 3 kg, the JVPC has an ergonomic, ambidextrous layout with a retractable stock and Picatinny rails for optics and accessories. It fires over 700 rounds per minute to an effective range of 200-300 m, reportedly with low recoil and high reliability across extreme temperatures and varied operating environments. The weapon also incorporates a 120 mm bayonet and is designed for a service life of 15 years or 15,000 rounds.PLR Defence, on the other hand, will series build IWI’s Galil ACE CQB carbine, designated Jeet (“victory”). Featuring a 368 mm barrel, a weight of 3.2 kg, and a cyclic rate of 650-750 rounds per minute, it is effective out to 300–500m. Jeet uses a rotating bolt with a short-stroke gas piston, a full-length Picatinny rail, a folding/telescopic stock, ambidextrous controls, and compatibility with standard NATO magazines. The ACE CQB has seen extensive operational use with the Israel Defence Forces in prolonged close-quarter combat environments.Meanwhile, the WASS HWT procurement strikingly replicates the dysfunctionality of the carbine acquisition, but with a twist. Initially, 98 Black Shark HWTs were shortlisted by the Indian Navy in 2008-9 to arm its Kalvari-class SSKs, at the time being licence-built at Mazagaon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) in Mumbai.But in May 2016, the entire HWT contract was abruptly cancelled following corruption allegations against its then-parent company, Finmeccanica – the Italian defence giant embroiled in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter scandal. Though the bribery charges related to a separate helicopter deal and remain unsubstantiated even today, the resulting stigma effectively barred Finmeccanica, of which WASS was a subsidiary, from Indian defence contracts.Consequently, the Kalvari-class SSKs were forced to operate with decades-old modified German SUT torpedoes, which IN officers openly described as a “poor substitute.” This capability gap was not fully resolved even after the MoD, in December 2024, signed a Rs 877-crore contract with France’s Naval Group – the original Scorpene designer – to equip all six Kalvari submarines with DRDO-designed Varunastra heavyweight torpedoes.While a welcome indigenous stopgap, the Varunastra appeared seemingly insufficient to meet the Indian Navy’s full operational requirements, particularly in terms of performance envelope and war-fighting credibility. Industry sources said that this ‘lingering inadequacy’ explained the renewed push to import 48 WASS HWTs, reflecting a reality the Indian Navy had identified more than a decade earlier – but one repeatedly stymied by MoD bureaucracy, indecision, and a sequence of self-inflicted procurement missteps that ended up leaving a critical combat capability unresolved for years.Senior industry officials said that reordering 48 WASS HWTs was an “implicit admission” that the original cancellation delivered neither self-reliance nor strategic advantage. Instead, it delayed induction, weakened deterrence, and sharply inflated costs through renegotiation, while forfeiting the economies of scale that accrued from the original 98 HWT order.“The Navy, for its part, ended up paying the operational price, patrolling with compromised capability,” said an industry official associated with the MoD. The Navy, he added, declining to be named, was forced to manage risks that should never have existed in the first place.However, with deliveries of the HWTs projected from 2028 onwards, the schedule further lays bare a severe capability void. INS Kalvari, the lead boat, was commissioned in December 2017, implying that the Scorpène fleet will have spent nearly ten to 11 years in service without a fully modern, operational HWT – an unusually long and troubling deficiency for submarines whose combat effectiveness rests squarely on that weapon.Beyond the immediate capability gap, such repeated and enduring flip-flops by the MoD in both the carbine and HWT procurements have inflicted lasting damage on India’s standing in the global defence market. Repeated cancellations and reversals have reinforced perceptions of India as an unreliable and undependable customer – one who regularly reneges on contracts long after technical evaluations and price negotiations have been completed.Over the years, such recidivism and unpredictability in materiel buys have not just alienated but actively deterred original equipment manufacturers, narrowed competition, driven up costs, and sabotaged prospects for meaningful technology partnerships – eroding the very atmanirbharta the MoD claims to champion in a bid to modernise the military.Note: An earlier version of this piece had an image with a PTI caption misidentifying Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh.