‘Govt to increase defence production by 2025’

NEW DELHI,

DEFENCE Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said the Government is working and committed to increasing the defence production target from current $12 billion to $22 billion by 2025.

“You (industry) can imagine, with this kind of growth, how many opportunities will be available for the Indian industry,” the Defence Minister said while addressing FICCI’s 95th Annual Convention & AGM here. He further underlined that to increase the participation of domestic industry, the Government has reserved a certain portion of defence capital acquisition for domestic procurement. “Out of the total defence capital budget outlay, 68 per cent of it is reserved for indigenous procurement by domestic industry and 25 per cent for the private sector. The results of these have now started appearing and more measures will be announced soon,” he emphasised.

The Government, he said, is also working to provide market access to the domestic industry to make them Aatmanirbhar. Singh said that in the last few years, there has been a continuous increase in defence exports.

The Government has already taken a series of steps including simplifying the FDI norms which have been increased to 74 per cent via automatic route and 100 per cent via Government route, he added.

The Defence Minister also urged the domestic industry and foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers to invest in Indian defence sector by focusing on R&D, bringing in newer technologies and capital.