New Delhi. In keeping with the government’s policy of encouraging private participation in the Defence sector and as part of “Make in India” policy, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that the procedure for exports by private players in the defence sector has been simplified and asked them to work towards boosting exports to friendly countries.
Addressing CEOs of top defence and aerospace firms at a roundtable on the theme ‘Make in India in Defence Industry’ here, Singh said they have a huge opportunity to contribute to domestic market in addition to exports.
He said that government was keen on encouraging private industry investment in defence sector while also strengthening defence PSUs and Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and that defence companies have huge opportunities in contributing to domestic market in addition to exports.
Singh said the strategic partnership model has been notified to establish defence manufacturing infrastructure and supply chain through which Indian companies could choose a partner through a competitive and transparent process and that the FDI policy in defence sector has been liberalised.
Regarding the offset processing, he said the Ministry has set up an end-to-end offset processing portal through which proposals of value US$ 1.5 billion were processed. Entry barriers for MSMEs were also reduced and this resulted in doubling of defence licenses issued from 215 in 2014 to 440 in 2019.
He said the Defence Investor Cell established a year ago in the Ministry has processed nearly 550 queries and grievances.
Highlighting various measures initiated by the government to encourage defence exports, Singh asked the industry to work towards increasing exports to friendly countries. He said export procedure has been simplified and defence procurement procedure was revised in 2016 to encourage indigenous design, development and manufacture.
The 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.
He said there is greater possibility now 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.
Singh said the Indian defence industry’s production was Rs 80,000 crore in 2018-19 of which Rs 16,000 crore was the contribution from the private sector.
The Minister said the nation is confidently scaling new heights based on strong political leadership strengthened by strategic economy. He called for a multi-pronged approach to achieve the aim of ‘Make in India’.
