 Today we have with us Comrade S. N. Pathak and Comrade Sree Kumar, President and General Secretary respectively of All India Defense Employees Federation. Welcome Comrades. Can you tell us why you are sitting on a Dharna since July 3rd? What has caused it? What has brought it about? You see the Government of India has taken a decision to privatize the defense production which is either to under the control of the Government of India through the ordinance factories, DRDO and public sector to the private sector and they have also decided to allow 100 percent foreign direct investment in the defense production sector. This is one aspect which we are fighting against the policy of the government since we with our vast experience in the defense industry as worker of the defense industry for more than 35-40 years, we are having a serious concern that this will go against the security of our country to open the doors of the defense production to private corporates whose basic interest is to earn profit, more profit and more and more profit. Now recently during the month of February, a letter came from the Prime Minister's office to all the ordinance factories asking for certain vital information like the name of the product, the technical description of the product, the photograph of the product, and the cost of the product and the number of products for the past three years what these factories have produced. That much we can understand because after all Prime Minister has got every right to review any government departments function but the subsequent information asked that is about the land holding by the ordinance factories. You see the ordinance factories are holding more than 60,000 acres of land and many of the factories are in prime locations like Chennai, Suburban of Mumbai, Pune, Kanpur, Deradun like that. So this has cost us a series of worry why these information are being asked. So immediately we started protesting against that but no response came from the government. While we were fighting against this particular aspect suddenly on 27th April 2017 the Department of Defense Production issued an order with the approval of the Defense Minister Mr. Arun Getli stating that 143 products which are today being manufactured by the ordinance factories will be outsourced with immediate effect. Now 143 products if it is taken away then almost 25 ordinance factories will be very badly affected and some of the factories are I can mention vehicle factory Jabalpur which is manufacturing the military vehicles 2019 onwards they will not get any workload from the army. After that another order came on 1st of June that 39 more items are also going to be outsourced in the name of non-core items. So this we have protested and told the government that you see any defense requirement any defense item how can you call it a non-core item and these items are being manufactured in the ordinance factories for years together. Now one fine morning somebody decides that these are all non-core items and you need not produce and that too arbitrarily without discussing with the major stakeholder we are representing the defense civilian workforce numbering about 4 lakhs and ordinance factories alone have got about 90,000 employees. In the past the previous defense ministers right from Mr. George Fernandez Mr. Jaswant Singh the present Rashtrabadi Pranam Mukherjee Sahib and Mr. A. K. Antain they have all assured that whatever products you are manufacturing will not be outsourced and when we told sir whatever today we are manufacturing tomorrow because of the technology it will become obsolete then what will happen about the future production then they have assured that future also any new products are required for the army and then factories will be given the first priority. You say that this whole process of privatization has been or this apprehension that they are trying to privatize has been there for many years. So what is so special about today what has happened in the last few years that make you feel that that the speed with which privatization is being undertaken has gone far ahead. See this defense budget is 18% of the Indian budget out of 18% till that 5% was the salary of armies say 12 to 13% was being explained for manufacturing of defense items till that in India these were being these money were being made expenditure by the government itself. There was no broker in between purchasing of materials in making infrastructure ordinance factories salary to the defense civilian employees is all were going through so many years in 12 or 13% is not very small amount of the budget you see it is started from where it is started from the privatization of hospitals that is our medical care and schools they are having very small 2% 3% so they take first they take 6% of this government expenditure they find that is very much they got they are very enjoying it all these MPs MLA's were having this open these schools and got this 5% now out of this 12% nobody was getting anything it is we it is defense ministry who was making expenditure for all of that the private people multinational you say not multinational some of the multinational also they thought this is a huge amount which you can if we once we get we can get a lot of amount from the government's money and that is the you can say the first pillar of privatization. Now but the argument that is constantly made against the defense sector that the defense sector is just gets a lot of funds from the government of India every year in the budgetary allocation but they are not able to make maximum use of it and that they are incapable of taking us on the path of indigenization how do you meet this argument you see rifle is the basic equipment required for a shotgun that is a basic weapon now the Indian Army some 15 years before they told that then existing model of 7.61 rifle that is out that has become outdated so we want a modern rifle so DRDO and the ordnance factories jointly designed a rifle which is called the INSAS rifle Indian National Small Arms System 5.56 when I mean the size of the bullet now that is being used by the army for more than 15 years after 15 years one fine morning army has come and told because basically we depend on only one customer that is the army they should decide about their requirement what is going to be their futuristic weapon for the next 10 years 20 years like that that they have to take a decision depending upon the geo-political situation and the political policy of the government all these things are interlinked now suddenly one some two years before they told no don't produce no more 5.56 rifles I have got enough stock in my go downs in my depots so I want an oven assault rifle so we have developed they have got three major small arms factories one is in Nishapur rifle factory Nishapur near Kolkata small arms factory Kanpur and factory Thichirapur these three factories have developed three different designs all the three different designs were given to the army for trial lot of trials were done and finally one rifle they have in principle approved that is being produced by this was an year before last year then they told you make this improvement and all those things so this has been done whatever army suggested as a user the producer ordinance factory has done it different trials of our own we have held and since we became satisfied that this rifle which we have developed definitely this will satisfy the army we have informed the army now you please come and check yourself director general of infantry himself came so he himself presided over the proof proof was successfully done only some minor aberrations which he has pointed out and immediately the ordinance factory as told rifle factory Shapur as told within a month we will be able to overcome all these small small defects whatever you have and there are minutes which it must have been there because these are all high level things you see we why minute just when a month before we both visited that factory we made the higher officer they themselves confess to us we have given them to up to their satisfaction we both were there who know the situation now you see after this all of us were expecting at least this issue will be sorted out even in the newspapers also this came the got a rifle developed by Shapur is being in principle approved by the army for procurement but after couple of days another news item came that army has rejected this since it is not fulfilling their requirement immediately they have asked the government to import to more than 1,50,000 rifle and supply to them so this is how things are being going on in this country how much are they going to spend to acquire 1,50,000 right they will go for a global tender we do not know how much of them quotation it will come but in the meantime another development which has taken place is this punch Lloyd one of the another corporate this punch Lloyd company has entered into an agreement a collaborative arrangement what they now call as a strategic partnership with the Israel weapon industry the information what we are having is that this Israel weapon industry was previously called as Israel military industry IMI which was blacklisted by government of India when Mr. AK Antony was the defense minister maybe they must have changed their name to IWI and with that IWI this punch Lloyd has entered into a collaborative arrangement and he has opened a factory near Gwalior which was inaugurated by the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister himself and he is now telling that I have got a license from the government of India and I have got a collaborative arrangement with Israel weapon industry I will supply whatever rifle is required for the armed forces so these are all the game plan game plan of the private corporate houses and lobbies within the government which whom they wanted to encourage more and more private sector and give an argument as what you are telling against the ordinance factories defense PSUs and DRDO and then see that in due course of time these industries become sick so that they can be sold out their lands can be sold out the factories can be sold out and the entire defense production will come under the control of the corporate houses is it in the interest of the security of the nation this is the major question all India defense employees federation is posing before the public and punch Lloyd when punch Lloyd is asking for material they get within 30 days when we ask for material we do not forget for eight months why to you believe that this privatization threatens national security defense industries are not supposed to be commercial industry defense industry is not to earn a profit the relationship between the armed forces and the ordinance factories today is a patriotic relationship in fact in one of the meeting the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi told the ordinance factories are the fourth force of the defense of our country now handing over this security related industry to the private sector we are of the firm view that any corporate house who invest money in this sector and who is the customer only one customer you know this is not an item to be produced and sold in the market this cannot be sold in the market you have to depend on the Indian Army only an Indian Army as I have earlier mentioned to you they themselves are not clear what type of weapons they require for the next 10 years or 5 years why ordinance factories are there because sometimes army wants to 500 items be produced sometimes they want 10 lakhs be produced because it is a government industry that is why this industry is called a war reserve industry only government can maintain this only government can preserve this no private industry will be able to manage a defense industry because the customer is limited the order is limited and that is why confederation of Indian industry has come with a statement that our private industries will be able to participate in defense only if the government of India ensures 10 years workload I am giving you another example right example we are when 65 war came the people of the factories when 71 war came in other wars the people of the ordinance factories they do not go houses their houses for one week they worked 24 hours there they sleep there they eat there they take bath there and all arrangements they make there because Pakistan is a learner but when this will go to Tata or go to any other people what is going to happen nobody has thought of it tell me Tata will go Tata will go in the war time he will say to their own union tell your people to go for a strike I will bargain with the government it is the right time to bargain to make some increase of the rate so that what it will happen but tell me the process of privatization did not begin with this government it began under UPA and the Khelkar committee was set up by Atal Bihari Bajpayee government they are the ones who recommended that one should go in for it at no point were the all India defense employees federation consulted you see there even before Khelkar committee there was another committee that was TK Nair committee who happened to be the principal secretary of prime minister Manmohan Singh that was the first committee BJ Khelkar committee came then only first was the TK Nair committee that committee we attended that because with a good intention that a committee has been formed to strengthen to restructure the ordinance factory something good will come we attended that meeting both the first and we have argued before that committee because that committee asked us a question why ordinance factory should remain as a government department why not it should it be corporatized then we have understood there is something fishy behind this then we opposed we told no corporatization because corporatization means first step of privatization so we are opposing we don't accept it as expected Nair committee has recommended for corporatization we opposed George Fernandez was the minister we went agreement was made no corporatization then BJ Khelkar committee came they also recommended for corporatization again we went to the government two agreements one with Mr Pranam Mukherjee another with Mr AK Anthony written agreements written notes recorded minutes in which we were also there the honorable ministers were there and their paraphernalia secretary secretary dp all these people were there now this government has never held even a single meeting in its more than three years with the major stakeholders that what is going to be their policy one defense production and what they expect from the workforce for the improvement of the organization after all we are prepared for that we are patriotic citizens we also want that ordinance factory should improve it should be empowered it should be strengthened it should be developed and for that what government expect from us they should call us and have a dialogue no which they are not having arbitrarily they are deciding and our representations are not being attended or addressed to up to this time eight days over in Delhi we are sitting under strike we have given notice to the government their own CID or IB whatever information sources they are having they are getting the information but how they bother to call us to discuss with us no thank you very much for the interview and coming and telling us taking us through very major issue of concern that faces our country thank you very much we also thank you so much