In a renewed push for self-reliance in the defence sector, the government on Thursday gave its in-principle approval to a raft of indigenous defence tasks that will involve diagram and improvement by the industry, with the army hardware protecting light tanks, airborne stand-off jammers, verbal exchange equipment and simulators, officials familiar with the development said.
The defence ministry has cleared nine such projects: 4 below the ‘Make-I’ and five under the ‘Make-2’ categories of the Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020.
The ‘Make’ class of capital acquisition is the cornerstone of the Make in India initiative that seeks to construct indigenous skills thru the involvement of each public and private sector. ‘Make-I’ refers to government-funded projects whilst ‘Make-II’ covers industry-funded programmes.
“In a landmark step, the defence ministry has presented four projects to the Indian industry for format and improvement underneath Make-I category. The enterprise will be supplied monetary guide for prototype improvement of these projects,” the ministry stated in a statement.
The four projects are for the sketch and development of mild tanks, communication equipment with Indian protection protocols, airborne electro-optical pod with ground-based system and airborne stand-off jammers.
Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM) president SP Shukla welcomed the development. “These tasks will have a superb cascading effect on the complete defence ecosystem,” he said. SIDM had recently made a suggestion to the government to provide tasks to the Indian industry beneath the Make-I category.
“This is for the first time due to the fact the launch of industry-friendly DAP-2020 that Indian enterprise has been involved in improvement of big-ticket platforms such as mild tank and conversation tools with Indian protection protocols,” the ministry said.
The 5 tasks authorised below the industry-funded Make-II procedure are simulators for Apache attacks helicopters and Chinook multi-mission choppers, wearable robotic equipment for aircraft maintenance, self reliant fight automobile and integrated surveillance and concentrated on machine for mechanised forces.
Projects underneath ‘Make-II’ class contain prototype improvement of military hardware or its upgrade for import substitution for which no government funding is provided.
“The indigenous improvement of these projects will assist harness the diagram abilities of Indian defence industry and position India as a layout chief in these technologies,” the ministry added.
Another sub-category below ‘Make’ is ‘Make-III’ that covers army hardware that may now not be designed and developed indigenously, but can be manufactured in the country for import substitution, and Indian companies may also manufacture these in collaboration with foreign partners.
In the Union Budget announced on February 1, India earmarked ₹84,598 crore — sixty eight % of the military’s capital acquisition finances — for purchasing domestically produced weapons and systems to improve self-reliance in the defence sector, besides placing aside 25% of the defence R &D budget for private industry, startups and academia to encourage them to pursue design and development of military platforms.
India has set apart ₹70,221 crore — 64% of the military’s capital finances — for home defence procurement remaining year, compared to ₹51,000 crore, or 58% of the capital budget, in 2020-21.
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said customisation and area of expertise of army hardware used to be essential to preserve the advantage of shock over India’s adversaries and that this may want to be finished only if weapons and structures are developed in the country.
India will quickly notify a new listing of weapons and systems that cannot be imported. This will be the third nice indigenisation listing — the authorities has already notified two lists of 209 weapons and tools that can’t be imported.
These encompass artillery guns, missile destroyers, ship-borne cruise missiles, mild fight aircraft, light transport aircraft, long-range land-attack cruise missiles, primary trainer aircraft, multi-barrel rocket launchers, assault rifles, sniper rifles, mini-UAVs, distinct kinds of helicopters, next-generation corvettes, airborne early warning and Control (AEW&C) systems, tank engines and medium-range surface-to-air missile systems.
After the first two lists were notified, the government has signed contracts worth ₹54,000 crore for domestic arms procurement, and deals worth ₹4.5 lakh crore are in the works.
