New Delhi, Aug 20 (UNI) With objectives to promote indigenous development and manufacturing of defence equipment and reduce the dependency on imports, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday urged the foreign companies to build their production facilities in India while calling the Indian private players to engage with the defence services, DPSUs and OFBs for meeting their indigenisation requirements.
Speaking at a seminar on Modernisation and Indigenisation Plan of the Indian Air Force, Mr Singh said, "I would like to take this opportunity to urge foreign OEMs to establish manufacturing facilities for their products in India. A number of opportunities are available to foreign companies to invest in India through FDI, Joint Ventures or the defence offset route."
Urging the private players to take benefits of slew of initiatives undertaken by the government, the minister said, "I would strongly urge the Indian private industry to take advantage of these initiatives and come forward and engage with the defence services, DPSUs and OFBs for meeting their indigenisation requirements."
Highlighting the measures taken by the government, he said the process of defence offset implementation has been streamlined and the requirement of prescribing Indian Offset Partners and components for offset discharge for the entire period of contract at the time of signing of contract has been done away with.
"We have also issued comprehensive outsourcing and vendor development guidelines for DPSUs (Defence Public Sector Undertakings) and OFBs (Ordinance Factory Boards) to promote participation of private sector, particularly MSMEs in defence production," Mr Singh added.
On Balakot air strike he said, "Indian Air Force is a technologically advanced and extremely potent force. The recent offensive strike against terrorist outfits in our neighbourhood speaks volumes about the reach and lethality of this formidable arm of the Indian Armed Forces."
Speaking at the same event, IAF Chief ACM BS Dhanoa said that the process of using indigenously developed weapons has already been started in a big way.
"We can't wait for indigenous technology to replace obsolete warfighting equipment. Neither will it be prudent to import every defence equipment from abroad. What we're doing is replacing our high-end obsolete weapons with indigenously developed ones," the IAF Chief said.
Talking about the indigenisation projects, ACM Dhanoa said, "There are presently 11 projects , out of which project sanction order has been issued to multiple development agencies for two projects including infrared search and tracking for air platform."
Remaining 9 projects are at stages of aceepatance of neccesity and finalisation of PSQRs and feasibility study, the IAF chief added.
On the occasion, Mr Singh and ACM Dhanoa launched a book on indigenisation efforts of defence equipment by services.
UNI ASH ADG 1426