NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for an Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) in the defence manufacturing sector is slowly, but steadily, becoming a reality. The Defence Expo 2022, held from October 18 to 22, in Gujarat’s state capital Gandhinagar, in which over 1,300 companies from India and nearly 50 other countries participated, showcased that the Indian Defence sector is at the cusp of revolution. According to reports India recently announced figures for the highest-ever defence export growth that swelled by a staggering 334 per cent over the last five years. This is expected leap phenomenally, after the transactions initiated during the DefExpo fructify.
Since the beginning, India has continued to be one of the largest importers of defence products in the world. “We are doing our best reverse this trend and make India a top exporter of defence products across the world,” says Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar. The Central Government is making efforts to “unleash the energy” of the Make-in-India initiative as a whole in the defence sector. The Indian defence ecosystem is spreading its arms overseas as military exports have jumped by 334 pc in the last five years, which involves supplies of arsenals to more than 75 countries around the globe.
With collaborative efforts, India has taken several policy initiatives in the past few years to amplify its indigenous design, development, and manufacture of defence equipment, to make world-class military apparatus. The slew of initiatives include priority to the procurement of capital items from domestic sources under Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP)-2020, the announcement of 18 major defense platforms for industry-led design and development, liberalization of foreign direct investment (FDI) policy allowing 74 per cent investment under the automatic route, among several others.
To minimise import by Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs), the Department of Defence Production (DDP) has notified three positive indigenisation lists of subsystems, assemblies and components. Importantly, two defence industrial corridors have been established — one each in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu to bolster indigenous manufacturing.
In 2020, the Modi Government had set a target of Rs 35,000 crore ($ 5 billion) export in aerospace, and defence goods and services in the next five years. This is part of the turnover of Rs 1.75 lakh crore ($25 billion) in defence manufacturing by 2025 that the government is aiming to achieve.
India’s defence exports touched a record Rs 13,000 crore in 2021-22, “eight times” of what it was around five years ago. Besides the strategic importance of a deal with Armenia, the export order is a boost for the indigenous defence industry with the Indian government keen to increase the value of Indian arms exports.
India had also signed a contract with the Philippines in January 2022 for the sale of BrahMos missiles. Currently, India exports defence equipment to 75 countries and these include weapon simulators, tear gas launcher, torpedo loading mechanism, alarm monitoring & control, night vision monocular & binocular, light-weight torpedo & fire control systems, armoured protection vehicle, weapons locating radar, highfrequency radio, coastal surveillance radar among others.
India’s defence exports are mainly to countries like the US, the Philippines and other countries in South-East Asia, the Middle East and Africa
