MoD signed 135 contracts with Indian vendors in 4 years under Make in India

New Delhi: The Ministry of Defence has signed 135 contracts with Indian vendors and 75 contracts with foreign vendors for capital procurement of defence equipment for Armed Forces in the last four financial years (2015-16 to 2018-19), Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh said on Wednesday. The move is part of the government’s initiative to give a boost to the country’s public and private sector under the Make in India initiative.

‘Govt working to achieve higher levels of indigenisation’

While responding to a question in the Lok Sabha, Singh said, “The government is pursuing initiatives to achieve higher levels of indigenisation and self-reliance in the defence sector by harnessing the capabilities of the public and private sector industries in the country. These measures include according priority and preference to procurement from Indian vendors and liberalisation of the licensing regime.”

Indian Navy getting its warships built at Indian shipyards

The Navy designs most of its weapon intensive warships in-house and gets them built indigenously at Indian Shipyards.  The Indian Navy has in-house capability to design complex frontline combatants like corvettes, stealth frigates, destroyers and aircraft carriers.

Under Make in India, major shipbuilding projects pertaining to indigenous aircraft carrier, frigates, submarines, destroyers, corvettes, naval offshore patrol vessels etc, are at various stages of execution at different Indian shipyards.

Strengthening of defence PSUs

Singh informed the Lok Sabha that the government is taking various steps to strengthen the infrastructure of DPSU shipyards, is endorsing adoption of modular construction technologies to bring down construction period of warships and is working on policy interventions to promote indigenisation of imported equipment for warships.