India exported Rs 2600 crore defence items in last five years
In a move to encourage indigenous defence production, India in the last one year, exported defence items to 22 countries including the United States, the UK, Israel and Russia. Major exports from India included shipping forging equipment, electronic assemblies and flight control panels to the US; transmitting tubes to the UK ; MIG and Sukhoi 30 aircraft spares and services to Russia; Cheetal helicopters to Afghanistan; Dhruv helicopters and bulletproof jackets to Nepal; and Sukhoi 30 avionics and MIG spares to Malaysia. The total defence export was valued at Rs.669.88 crore in 2014-15, while the figure was Rs.686.27cr a year ago. The country’s defence export increased to Rs.446.75 cr in 2012-13 from Rs.512.48 crore in 2011-12 and Rs.290.51 crore in 2010-11. According to the Ministry of Defence, the contribution in the export from Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs), Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and private sector companies was worth over Rs.2,605 crore in the last five years. The percentage of procurement from indigenous sources out of total procurement in the same period stood between 59.01% and 80.34 %, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar told the Parliament on Wednesday. Through the Defence Production Policy promulgated in 2011, the Ministry aims to be self-reliant in the design, development and production of equipmentin as early a time frame as possible. The Ministry also intends to enhance potential of Small, Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in indigenisation and broadening the defence research and development base of the country. As per the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, the Ministry revised the list of defence products for the purpose of issuing industrial licencesand has removed most of the components so as to remove entry barriers for the industry, especially the SME segment. The Ministry also extended initial validity-period of industrial licences to seven years along with a provision to further extend it by three years on a case-to-case basis, against three years granted initially under the IDR Act. Restriction of annual capacity in the licence for the defence sector has been removed and the licensee has been allowed to sell the defence items to the government entities under the control of MHA, PSUs, state governments and other defence licensee companies without approval from the department of defence production. Recognising the need for promotion of defence exports, the Ministry also formulated the Defence Exports Strategy. Preference to ‘buy (Indian)’, ‘buy & make (Indian)’ and ‘make’ categories of acquisition over ‘buy (global)’ category, thereby giving preference to Indian industry in procurement are among other initiatives by MoD towards building indigenous defence capacity.
August 06, 2015 | 1:18pm IST.
to success.