Many significant projects are in progress under the Make in India initiative of the Government in the last few years. The arms and armaments produced include the 155mm artillery gun system ‘Dhanush’, the light combat aircraft ‘Tejas’, the ‘Akash’ surface-to-air missile system, INS Kalvari, INS Khanderi, INS Chennai, and the anti-submarine warfare corvette (ASWC).
Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt gave this information in a written reply to MV Shreyams Kumar in the Rajya Sabha on February 7.
Also manufactured in India are the Arjun armoured repair and recovery vehicle, the bridge laying tank, the bimodular charge system (BMCS) for 155mm ammunition, the medium bulletproof vehicle (MBPV), the Lakshya parachute for pilotless target aircraft, the thermal imaging sight mark-II for T-72 tank, the offshore surveillance ship, the water jet fast attack craft, the inshore patrol vessel, the offshore patrol vessel, the fast interceptor boat, the landing craft utility, and 25T tugs.
The Government has taken several policy initiatives in the past few years under the Make in India programme and brought reforms to encourage indigenous design, development and manufacture of defence equipment in the country, thereby reducing dependence on imports continuously.
These initiatives include: according to priority to the procurement of capital items from domestic sources under Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP)- 2020; notification of two ‘Positive Indigenisation Lists’ of total 209 items of Services and one ‘Positive Indigenisation List’ of total 2,851 items of Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs), for which there would be an embargo on the import beyond the timelines indicated against them; and simplification of the industrial licensing process with a longer validity period.
Other initiatives include liberalisation of foreign direct investment (FDI) policy allowing 74 per cent FDI under automatic route; simplification of the make procedure; launch of Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) scheme involving startups & micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); implementation of Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India), Order 2017; launch of an indigenisation portal namely SRIJAN to facilitate indigenisation by Indian industry including MSMEs; reforms in the offset policy with thrust on attracting investment and transfer of technology for defence manufacturing by assigning higher multipliers; establishment of two defence industrial corridors one each in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
The Government, in the last three years, i.e. from 2018-19 to 2020-21 and current year till December 2021, has accorded the Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) to 150 proposals worth Rs 247,515 crore approximately, under various categories of capital procurement which promote domestic manufacturing as per DAP-2020.
