India is set to export defence equipment worth 5 Billion USD by 2025
Kolkata, July.15 (HS): India has targeted to achieve the export of defence equipment to the tune of 5 billion USD by 2025 to various countries by establishing a close relationship with renowned private players ‘through collaborations and partnership with them instead of a mere contractual relation’
This was stated here today by Ajay Kumar, Secretary, Department of Defence Production, under the Ministry of Defence, during an interactive session on ‘Defence Production Policy: Towards Self-reliance’, organised by the century old Bharat Chamber of Commerce (BCC) .
Speaking on the latest incentives being extended to the Medium and Small scale industries in matters of Defence production, Dr Kumar informed that in order to simplify the procedure,the Ordnance Factories had now decided to do away with capacity verification for 90 per cent of their products.
With a view to facilitating fast payments to these MSME unis,the Government had set up separate platforms and mandated clearance of all payments within 45 days of completing the supply,he said.
Welcoming the launch of a ‘Defence Sector Facilitation Centre’ at BCC premises,Dr Kumar hoped that the Centre would be highly instrumental in meeting its objective.
‘The Department of Defence Production will be interested in partnering with the Chamber for organising many more such seminars on Defence exports in future at the Centre’,he said and added ‘It is a small step towards a great beginning’.
Former Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha in his address observed that India needed to strengthen its defence capabilities which would eventually help the country in attaining greater economic power and self reliance.
However, factors like under performance of the domestic industry,excessive regulation by the Government, lack of capital and infrastructure and a regressive licence procuring policy had not so far help the defence sector to prosper accordingly, he observed.
Air Marshal Raha also lauded the recent initiatives taken by the Government in indigenisation of defence production and said it would go a long way towards preparing the nation’s Road Map for achieving self-reliance in defence production.
Also speaking on the occasion, J. P. Chowdhary, Executive Chairman, Titagarh Wagons Limited, advocated the need for relaxation of capacity verification by Defence Public Sector Undertakings before placing orders with private companies.
“The Indian private sector possesses the inherent capability of manufacturing and can become the leading supplier of Defence equipment on a global scale’, he said
Earlier welcoming the guests, BCC President Sitaram Sharma,stated that the immediate objective of the Chamber’s Facilitation Centre was to hand-hold and guide the MSME private sector enterprises in Eastern India towards diversification into Defence production.
Besides the forward looking objective of this initiative,the Chamber would urge the PSUs in Defence production to identify suppliers in the private sector.
He also emphasized the need for establishing a Defence Corridor in eastern India in order to provide impetus to large number of metal manufactures and engineering product units in this region to diversify into Defence production.
