By IANS
New Delhi : The private sector would get a level playing field in defence manufacturing and changes could also be considered to newly introduced norms governing military hardware purchases, Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju said Friday.
The minister said that an estimated five to seven billion dollars would flow into the country due to the offset clause (governing military hardware imports). “The private sector should take advantage of this as foreign vendors in big ticket deals have been given the freedom to choose an Indian partner,” Raju said at a seminar here.
“The aim is to establish a world-class manufacturing base in India and to build a strong public-private partnership,” he said at the seminar on ‘Defence Offset Policy: Opportunities for Indian IT and Electronics Industry’.
India last year unveiled a Defence Procurement Policy (DPP) that will govern future purchases of military hardware. A key feature is the offset clause laying down that 30 percent of all defence deals worth over Rs.3 billion has to be reinvested in the country.
“To maximize the benefits accruing from the offset policy, a coordinated approach amongst all (stakeholders) is essential while keeping in mind the larger picture of futuristic combat capability requirements,” Raju noted.
The stakeholders in this case are the defence ministry, the armed forces, the defence public sector undertakings, the Ordinance Factory Board and the Indian private sector, especially in the IT and electronics fields.
According to Raju, this public-private partnership route “achieves the objective of providing a platform for the two sides to interact and meaningfully participate in defence programmes”.
“It also works within a broader framework of supplier development, systems support, capacity building, technology development and transfer of technology for the growing number of indigenous defence manufacturing units,” the minister added.
Speaking about the changes suggested in the DPP, Raju said the government was open to these.
“We are open-minded about accepting new ideas. We are open to suggestions but there will be no piecemeal changes.
“We will evaluate our policy based on our discussions with various stakeholders. We will definitely adopt whatever is practical,” the minister maintained at the seminar organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Defence Offset Facilitation Agency (DOFA).
One of the suggestions made has been to enable banking of offset credits so that investments could be brought in at a later date.
“Banking of offsets is under consideration and we will formulate a policy on this soon,” P.K. Rastogi, additional secretary (Defence Production) stated.