Make in India tough task for defence sector? 429 indigenous equipments found defective

New Delhi, Jan 5: The Narendra Modi government started the Make in India campaign in the country, but it seems it will be a tough task for the government to do so in the defence sector.

As per a TOI report, " For, 429 types of defence equipment worth Rs 449.40 crore have been sent back to domestic ordnance factories in the past three years, due to quality issues.

According to documents accessed by the daily, this

include 162 types of weapons, which can range from rifles to rocket launchers, 16 categories of combat vehicles, and 52 types of ammunition, the shortage of which has been worrying the world's second largest land army."

The ministry of defence (MoD) said the Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA) has returned these equipment for rectification. The DGCA provides second party quality assurance about the equipments.

With 40 per cent of defence procurement still coming from abroad, government had earlier said it is working to boost indigenous manufacturing capacity to reduce dependence on foreign supplies.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar also informed the Lok Sabha that it would not be economical to manufacture certain defence equipment items.

The Minister had also said earlier that steps have been taken to reduce the dependence on imports for defence equipment as well to have a proper infrastructure that would help in starting to export such equipment in the future.

He also said export of defence equipment would increase over a period of time.

The total defence procurement was worth Rs 93,216.93 crore in 2013-14. Foreign procurement stood at Rs 38,202.66 crore, making for about 40 per cent of the total.

Out of the total, Rs 55,014.27 crore or 59 per cent of the procurement came from indigenous sources.

In 2012-13, indigenous sources accounted for nearly 64 per cent of the total defence procurement which had touched Rs 83,090.18 crore.

At that time, procurement worth Rs 52,719.38 crore was from indigenous sources while foreign part was to the tune of Rs 30,370.80 crore.

Last financial year (2013-14), the United States remained the largest foreign supplier of defence equipment with procurement worth Rs 13,441.99 crore.

The US was followed by Russia (Rs 11,625 crore), France (Rs 4,575.32 crore) and Israel (Rs 1,234.65 crore).

According to Parrikar, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and defence public sector undertakings have been asked to increase procurement of indigenous content.

Responding to a query on intellectual property rights related to indigenous manufacturing of defence equipment, Parrikar said foreign parts "cannot be made by way of Jugaad (managed)" or some other way".

The Defence Production Policy, promulgated in 2011, aims at achieving self-reliance in the design, development and production of equipment, weapon systems and create conducive conditions for the private industry to play an active role in this regard.

(With inputs from agencies)

OneIndia News