Make in India: India’s defence production has been pegged at Rs 80,000 crore last year, said defence minister Rajnath Singh while addressing a high level meeting with private and public sector defence and aerospace manufacturers. The government wants to encourage private defence manufacturers while strengthening the public sector defence PSUs and Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), said Rajnath Singh. He highlighted huge opportunities available in domestic market in addition to exports.
“Defence industry’s production was Rs 80,000 crore in 2018-19,” said defence minister Rajnath Singh.
He informed that private sector accounted for Rs 16,000 crore of total defence production which is one-fifth of the total domestic production.
“The strategic partnership model has been notified to establish defence manufacturing infrastructure and supply chain. Now Indian companies could choose a partner through a competitive and transparent process,” said the defence minister.
FDI in Defence
Defence minister informed that the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy for defence sector has been further liberalised.
He said defence ministry has already set up an end-to-end offset processing portal through which proposals of value USD 1.5 billion have been processed.
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Defence Start-ups
“Entry barriers for MSMEs have been reduced and it has resulted in doubling of defence licenses issued to small and medium enterprises from 215 in 2014 to 440 in 2019,” said the defence minister.
“Now there is greater possibility because the contribution of digital technologies in defence sector is on the upswing and India has strong capabilities to develop such technologies where startups have a significant role to play,” said Rajnath Singh.
He said the Defence Investor Cell established a year ago in the ministry has processed nearly 550 queries and grievances of defence manufacturers.
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Defence Exports
While highlighting various measures initiated by the government to encourage defence exports, defence minister Rajnath Singh urged the industry to work towards increasing exports to friendly countries.
“Export procedure has been simplified and defence procurement procedure was revised in 2016 to encourage indigenous design, development and manufacture,” said Rajnath Singh.
Defence minister said self reliance in defence sector would not be possible without development of indigenous technology and called for steps to develop related technologies within the country.
While addressing the gathering, Dr Ajay Kumar, secretary defence production said the roundtable was organised to obtain views and suggestions from the industry to further improve the systems and procedures in the defence sector.
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Minister of state for defence, Shripad Yesso Naik, senior officials of the defence ministry, defence PSUs, OFB and CEOs & representatives of top Defence manufacturing companies were present on the occasion.
