External affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said India's bid to enter the Missile Technology Control Regime was "on track" and the process to grant the membership was also expected to be completed "soon".
Ahead of prime minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington next week, and apparently to make a case for the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) membership, India on Thursday joined the global ballistic missile proliferation regime.
Though the government made it clear that joining the Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCoC) will not affect the national security and the country's missile programmes, there were apprehensions that India may have to shelve the Inter-Continental long-range Agni V and Agni VI programmes.
External affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said India's bid to enter the Missile Technology Control Regime was "on track" and the process to grant the membership was also expected to be completed "soon".
HCoC is a voluntary, legally non-binding, international confidence-building and transparency measure, which seeks to prevent proliferation of ballistic missiles that are capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. The HCoC is also a normative instrument to verify the spread of ballistic missiles, but like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), there is no inspection system to assure compliance.
Swarup said, "India's joining the Code signals our readiness to further strengthen global non-proliferation objectives." He also added that the country was in discussions with other control regimes, such as Wassenaar Arrangement, for the membership.
India's ballistic missile programme comprises three variants of Prithvi systems, with a range of 150-600km, and six variants of Agni, with a range of 700- 8,000km. The Agni V, tested recently, can take a flight of up to 5,800km and Agni VI, still under development, is expected to take a pay-load to 8,000km. Other systems include Trishul, Akash and Nag.
India had applied for membership of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an export control body of 34 countries, in the first week of June 2015, but had not gained membership. The Chinese application for MTCR membership has been lying pending for more than a decade. To substantiate its record on the non-proliferation commitment, India seems to have submitted a dossier of more than 100-pages along with its application for MTCR membership.
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