New Delhi [India], December 18 (ANI): Union Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said that the government is keen to make the country self-reliant in terms of defence equipment and is urging countries to come here and ‘make for India‘ and and ‘make for the world’.
Addressing the 94th Annual General Body meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) today, Singh said that India wants to produce its defence equipment within the country and is keen that friendly countries like the US, Russia and France use India as the base for their manufacturing units.
“Most of the countries in the world are friends with India. The US, Russia came here and yesterday only, the Defense Minister of France met me here. We told every friendly country that keeping in mind the nation’s security, we want to make India‘s defence materials within the country now,” he said.
“We are saying this to every country in the world: ‘Come Make In India‘, ‘Come Make for India‘ and ‘Come Make for the world’,” he added. The Defence Minister said that India and Russia inked a deal for the production of six lakh AK-203 assault rifles in Amethi. This project worth more than Rs 5,000 crore is going to be completed with the help of Russia, he said.
“The countries in the world are understanding our point. Many foreign companies want to come here and manufacture defence equipment. We have also made the path easier for them. FDI in the defence sector has been increased to 74 per cent under automatic route and 100 per cent under government route.”
“Under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat campaign, we are prioritizing defence equipment made in India over foreign goods. We have prepared a ‘Positive Indesignation List’ of 209 such defence equipment, which will not be imported after the prescribed limit,” he said.
The Union Minister further said that if the Defence Minister of a country is positive about defence production, then it is ‘good news’ for every Indian company working in the defence sector. “This is a golden opportunity that the industry should take advantage of.”
“You people are well aware that the timeline of most of the projects in the defence sector is not in months but in years. There are some projects which even take decades. One of the good things that our government has done is that we have succeeded in reducing the timeline of all types of projects to some extent. Not only this, but we have also successfully completed the unfinished projects of the previous governments,” he added.
The Defence Minister also emphasized that with the reforms undertaken by the Centre, the size of the Indian defence and aerospace sector is likely to reach Rs 5 lakh crore by 2047 from the current Rs 85,000 crores, adding that the private sector plays a huge role in achieving this goal. (ANI)
