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Atmanirbhar Bharat: India to buy more indigenous military equipment

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh stressed the need for next-generation 10-tonne Indian Multirole Helicopter
Last Updated 04 April 2022, 08:01 IST

Last week, the central government revealed the country's exports reached all-time high trade of more than $418 billion (approx Rs 31.57 lakh crore) dollars. Also, HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd), one of the country's premier Public Sector Unit (PSU) announced record revenue of Rs 24,000 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2022.

Now, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh during a gathering in Lucknow has revealed that the government has decided to procure more locally-made military equipment in addition to fast-tracking the Indo-Russia BrahMos missile development factory unit in Uttar Pradesh.

In 2021, in a push for the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan initiative, the central government had announced to end imports of at least 108 military equipment and encourage domestic players and PSUs to develop advanced defence gear and equipment including new generations of corvettes, radars, light and medium armoured vehicles, airborne early warning and control systems(AEW&C), medium-range surface-to-air missile systems (MRSAM), anti-tank guided missiles, tank engines and more.

Last Saturday (April 2), Singh while addressing the media gathering, organised to commemorate 60 years of the Chetak helicopter’s service for the Indian Armed Forces, in Hyderabad, stressed the need for the next-generation 10-tonne Indian Multirole Helicopter, which has not only has potential to improve India's armed forces military capability but also exports as well.

"Free technology is being transferred to the private companies by DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation). FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) limit has also been increased. Two positive indigenisation lists of defence items have been issued, while the third list will be out soon,” he said,

"There has been a huge positive response from the three services (Armed), research and development organisations and public and private sector industries. The MSMEs, start-ups, innovators and academia are together exploring new avenues of defence production," Singh added.

It should be noted that the ban on imports of 49 out of the 108 military types of equipment came to effect in December 2021 and the procurement of the rest of 59 arms, missiles, and other hardware is scheduled to be stopped by the end of 2025.

This year, the budgetary allocation for defence is Rs 5.25 lakh crore, 13 per cent of the government spending and 2.04 per cent of the GDP.

Though Rs 5.25 lakh crore allocation is 4.43 per cent more than the previous year, a major chunk, around 63 per cent of the capital procurement budget is be earmarked for the domestic industry in 2022-23.

In the coming weeks, Rajnath Singh is expected to make new announcements related to Atmanirbar Bharat Abhiyan initiatives for the defence sector, according to a report in the Times of India.

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(Published 04 April 2022, 07:27 IST)

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