New Delhi: In a step towards self-reliance, the Ministry of Defence has notified a ‘Negative list’ of 101 identified items for which there would be an embargo on the import beyond the timeline indicated against them. This list includes some high technology weapon systems like artillery guns, assault rifles, corvettes, sonar systems, transport aircrafts, light combat helicopters (LCHs), radars etc. to fulfil the needs of our Defence Services.
Today, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) also signed a contract with Mahindra Defence Systems Ltd (MDSL) for supply of 1,300 Light Specialist Vehicles to the Indian Army, at a cost of Rs 1,056 crore, in New Delhi. The induction of vehicles is planned to be completed in four years.
The Light Specialist Vehicle is a modern fighting vehicle and will be authorised to various fighting units for carriage of Medium Machine Guns, Automatic Grenade Launchers as well as Anti-tank Guided Missiles.
“This offers a great opportunity to the Indian defence industry to manufacture these items indigenously and develop capabilities to meet the requirements of the Armed Forces,” the Minister of State for Defence, Shripad Naik, told the Rajya Sabha today.
He informed that the proposals for indigenous design and manufacturing were considered under ‘Make’ Procedure of Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) -2020, which aimed to achieve the objective of self-reliance by involving greater participation of Indian industries including private sector through following mechanisms:
- Make-I (Government Funded): This involved design and development of equipment, systems, major platforms or upgrades thereof by the industry. Ministry provides financial support upto 70% of prototype development cost or maximum Rs. 250 crores per Development Agency (DA).
- Make-II (Industry Funded): This includes design & development and innovative solutions by Indian vendor, for which no Government funding is provided, but it has assurance of procurement on successful prototype development.
The Minister said as on date, there were four ongoing projects under Make-I category. Further, 56 proposals had been accorded ‘Approval in Principal’ under Make-II category out of which 23 proposals had been accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN).
In addition, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) had also undertaken 233 projects during the past three years since 2018. The projects included new defence equipment such as Cruise missile, Hypersonic missile, Anti-Ship missile, Extended Range Anti-Submarine Rocket, Mounted Gun System, Ammunitions, Electronic Warfare system, Radars, Torpedos, High Endurance Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.
Besides, the Minister said during the past 3 years, 79 projects amounting to Rs.8201 Crores directly pertaining to development of new defence equipments such as Cruise Missile, Anti-Ship Missile, Surface-to-Air Missile, Air-to-Air Missile, Extended Range Anti-Submarine Rocket, Mounted Gun System, Ammunitions, Electronic Warfare System, Radars, Torpedoes, High Endurance Autonomous Underwater Vehicle etc. had been undertaken.
He further said many DRDO developed technologies such as Battle Field Surveillance Radar (BFSR), Joint Venture Protective Carbine (JVPC) Jammers, 5.56 mm Rifle, 40 mm Under Barrel Grenade Launcher (UBRL), Oleo Resin (OR) Grenade were being utilized by the State Police. Moreover, upgrades to some of the systems had been developed by DRDO that included Arjun Mk-1A, Akash-NG, Light Combat Aircraft Mk-1A, Medium Power Radar-Extended Range, PINAKA- Extended Range, Guided Electronics & Communication System: Unified Mission Computer for SU-30 MKI aircraft, Internal EW System for MIG-29 Upgrade Aircraft, EW systems for Naval platforms.
Some of the DRDO developed systems which were likely to be available to our defence personnel during 2021-23 are as follow:
– global bihari bureau
