Wide scope and potential for military hardware industry in Sri Lanka”
There is wide scope for the military hardware manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka that can earn forex to the country, Major General, Eng. Renuka Rowel (retired), former Director General of the Research, Analysis, Project and Development Branch of the Sri Lanka Army said on the sidelines of a launch held in Colombo recently.
Rowel said if direction is given to the military, they have the capacity to manufacture armoured personnel carriers and naval crafts and even now the military manufactures 15 different types of naval crafts and 7 different types of armoured personnel carriers. Out of these 7 types 3 types have been recognised by the UN and they have been employed for various UN missions.
He said they have accepted the standards and it is a matter of finding suitable countries who are ready to acquire and procure Lankan things and giving it. A soldier retires at an age around 44 and they are very skillful people who have been trained in the engineering field as technicians. These people due to the lack of opportunities after retirement in the respective field that they have mastered end up as three-wheel drivers.
“This is why we say the people who were involved in the war will not get frustrated and they will also be happy if there is a military industry going because all these technicians retiring can work in those industries,” he said.
Developed countries in the world be it USA, Russia, Japan, England and Germany were involved in World War 1 or 2 and their entire nation effort was put into war. They had to manufacture tanks, aircraft and everything. So the entire nation was geared to manufacture military arsenal. Then after the world wars they continued this industry. Major companies were formed and they continued this technology and industry. That brought in huge revenue and is still bringing in a lot of revenue to those nations, he noted.
“We fought a 30 year war and won it. What are we doing with the experience that the soldiers and the officers gathered during these 30 years? We tried our level best to convince the political leadership that we also could match with those people by producing. There were several embargoes during the war time. Due to the embargoes we never had what we wanted. Due to this we practically faced problems in the field and we had to find solutions. So we did a lot of R&D and found solutions. America may not want to buy our technology but there are countries in and around the world who are fighting similar problems in their countries and they will definitely buy,” Rowel said.
The problem he said therefore was that no one was taking it forward. If that direction was given to the military they would have the expertise and capacity to manufacture armoured personnel carriers and naval crafts for the international market, he added.
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