New Delhi, Aug 9: In a major push to boost ‘Atamnirbhar Bharat’, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday introduced import embargo on 101 items beyond given timeline to boost indigenisation of defence production.
”The Ministry of Defence is now ready for a big push to Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. MoD will introduce import embargo on 101 items beyond given timeline to boost indigenisation of defence production,” Singh said in a series of tweets.
He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a clarion call for a self-reliant India based on the five pillars — Economy, Infrastructure, System, Demography and Demand and announced a special economic package for Self-Reliant India named ‘Atamnirbhar Bharat’.
Taking cue from that evocation, he said, the Ministry of Defence has prepared a list of 101 items for which there would be an embargo on the import beyond the timeline indicated against them, he said, adding that this is a big step towards self-reliance in defence.
The Defence Minister said the decision will offer a great opportunity to the Indian defence industry to manufacture the items in the negative list by using their own design and development capabilities or adopting the technologies designed and developed by DRDO to meet the requirements of the Armed Forces.
”The embargo on imports is planned to be progressively implemented between 2020 to 2024. Our aim is to apprise the Indian defence industry about the anticipated requirements of the Armed Forces so that they are better prepared to realise the goal of indigenisation,” he maintained.
The Defence Minister said the list is prepared by MoD after several rounds of consultations with all stakeholders, including the Armed Forces, public and private industry to assess current and future capabilities of the Indian industry for manufacturing various ammunition and equipment within India.
He said almost 260 schemes of such items were contracted by the Tri-Services at an approximate cost of Rs 3.5 lakh crore between April 2015 and August 2020.
It is estimated that contracts worth almost Rs 4 lakh crore will be placed upon the domestic industry within the next 6 to 7 years.
”Of these, items worth almost Rs 1,30,000 crore each are anticipated for the Army and the Air Force while items worth almost Rs 1,40,000 crore are anticipated by the Navy over the same period”.
The list also includes, wheeled Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) with indicative import embargo date of December 2021, of which the Army is expected to contract almost 200 at an approximate cost of over Rs 5,000 crore.
All necessary steps would be taken to ensure that timelines for production of equipment as per the Negative Import List are met, which will include a co-ordinated mechanism for hand holding of the industry by the Defence Services, the minister pointed out.
Singh said more such equipment for import embargo would be identified progressively by the Department of Military Affairs (DMA) in consultation with all stakeholders.