Pushing for self-reliance in the defence sector, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the government had taken steps to move forward in the sector with “transparency, predictability and ease of doing business”. The Prime Minister was delivering the keynote address at a ‘Webinar on Budget Announcements 2021-22: Galvanising Efforts for Atmanirbhar Bharat’. The webinar was also addressed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who said the government was actively promoting not only domestic manufacturing but also an export-oriented defence industry. Singh also made some key announcements about defence procurement from the domestic industry. “It has been the endeavour of the government to move forward in the defence sector with transparency, predictability and ease of doing business. There used to be hundreds of ordnance factories before independence. In both the World Wars, weapons on a large scale were exported from India. But, for many reasons, this system has not been strengthened as much as it should have been after Independence,” Modi said. Ruing that the country is among the biggest defence importers in the world, he said “an India that has the capacity to reach Mars could have made modern weapons also, but it became an easy way to import weapons from abroad”. Modi said India has made a list of 101 important items related to defence, which can be manufactured indigenously with the help of industries. He said a timeline has been set so that the domestic industry can plan to meet these requirements. Singh said another list of items that will not be imported will be notified in March 2021.
