Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday made an “important announcement”, where he listed the decisions being taken by his ministry to boost self-reliance in defence production.
In a series of tweets, he made some major announcements and said that defence ministry has prepared a list of 101 items for which there would be an embargo on the import beyond the timeline indicated against them.
The defence minister said that the defence ministry has that the defence ministry has bifurcated the capital procurement budget for 2020-21 between domestic and foreign capital procurement routes. A separate budget head has been created with an outlay of nearly Rs 52,000 crore for domestic capital procurement in the current financial year, he said.
“The Ministry of Defence is now ready for a big push to #AtmanirbharBharat initiative. MoD will introduce import embargo on 101 items beyond given timeline to boost indigenisation of defence production,” Singh tweeted.
He further said that the ministry has decided to embargo 101 items from being imported. “This is a big step towards self-reliance in defence. #AtmanirbharBharat”,” he said.
The list includes artillery guns, missile destroyers, ship-borne cruise missiles, light combat aircraft, light transport aircraft, long-range land attack cruise missiles, communication satellites, basic trainer aircraft, multi-barrel rocket launchers, a variety of radars, assault rifles, sniper rifles, mini UAVs and different types of ammunition.
The defence minister said that 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.
“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,” he said.
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Singh’s office had earlier tweeted about the scheduled “important announcement”.
“Raksha Mantri Shri @rajnathsingh will make an important announcement at 10.00 am today,” RMO India tweeted.
The development came a day after senior military commanders from India and China met in the Daulat Beg Oldie sector and held talks on reducing tensions along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.
The talks focussed on thinning the buildup of troops and weaponry in Depsang plains where the forward deployment of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has disrupted the Indian Army’s patrolling patterns, people familiar with the developments said.