executive dossier

Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar's main focus is to see that soldiers posted at the border feel comfortable and their morale is high.

Defence Secretary to the Government of India is certainly a key posting- in fact it is as high as a career bureaucrat can get in the totem pole. Pradeep Kumar's appointment to the high profile post is indeed a crucial development for the nation. A graduate in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Pradeep Kumar is both a technocrat and a social scientist by training. This combined with his wide experience as a bureaucrat makes him an ideal choice for the post; particularly at a time when as India's defence sector is poised on the crossroads.

Kumar, a 1972 batch IAS officer, is a relatively young Defence Secretary. He has taken his new responsibility as the biggest challenge of his career. Faced with the threat of Chinese aggression and Pakistan-sponsored fundamentalism in the sub-continent and surrounded by hostile elements in other neighbours such as Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka, India's defence forces have to remain in a constant state of preparedness, Kumar concurs. After he took over as Defence Secretary on August 1, 2009 Kumar has brought about a lot of changes in the shape of modernisation and training of the armed forces. Moreover, he has given a boost to the 22 lakh pensioners of the armed forces who were facing problems in disbursements. The government now spends about Rs 22, 000 crore on pensions to the retired personnel,confirms Kumar.

Kumar says that his Ministry takes care of every minute detail so that the soldiers posted at the border feel comfortable and their morale is high. The key tasks of his Ministry are human resource management and capability building, modernisation of the armed forces, managing external security through defence diplomacy and defence cooperation, welfare of the Servicemen and providing assistance to civil authorities as and when required. "Nuclear and biological warfare is one of the major threats the country is facing today and the department is gearing up to counter such warfare", says the Defence Secretary.


The Defence Ministry's mandates are to maintain and preserve India's borders, assist government agencies in coping with proxy war during internal threats and provide aid to civil administration in emergencies. "The main aim, however ,is to preserve the integrity of the country which has 15,106 kilometres of land border and 7,516 kilometres of coastline," Kumar says. This is a mammoth task as barring a few states like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana and Orissa, all others have international borders. Kumar says that the Defence Ministry has 40 Defence Cooperation pacts with 45 countries. These agreements are vital to India's defence network. They deal with confidence building, defence trade and structural dialogue with other countries. Joint defence exercises with other countries are part of such cooperation programmes. A budget of Rs 1,41,703 crore has been allocated for defence in 2009-2010. Kumar says that 95 percent of the ordnance needed by the services is manufactured in the country. But, our Defence is still dependant on other countries for the acquisition of weapons. India manufactures an array of defence products in eight public sector defence undertakings and two shipyards. Out of the eight, two PSUs are Navratnas and six are Miniratnas. The Government has given 100 percent open licensing to selected private companies to manufacture defence products and currently 49 such private companies have been granted licence.

Handling such a herculean challenge has not fazed Kumar. He is philosophical about his role in the scheme of things. "Life is a summation of small events, which help you to judge your own self' he quips," adding that, "one should have an attitude of equanimity and a certain sense of proportion to be fair and just.

Kumar says that with such a hectic schedule he either listens to Indian classical or light music which is soothing. Such music relaxes the mind and body, he quips. Kumar after retirement would love to spend all the time reading books and watch good movies.