By PTI
NEW DELHI: India doesn’t differentiate between international and home firms however going ahead, it’ll “possibly” not import any defence merchandise, a prime Defence Ministry official mentioned on Wednesday.
India was the world’s largest importer of main arms in 2017-21 and accounted for 11 per cent of complete international arms imports within the interval, Stockholm-based defence think-tank SIPRI had said earlier this month.
As lengthy as international OEMs (authentic tools producers) are in India, and so long as they’re designing and manufacturing inside India, the Indian authorities is totally equitable, mentioned Sanjay Jaju, Additional Secretary (Defence Production), Ministry of Defence, in his speech at an occasion of trade physique PHDCCI.
“I have friends from global OEMs like Lockheed Martin sitting right here. It is not a commentary on foreign OEMs because we are ownership agnostic now,” he mentioned. The Centre doesn’t differentiate between international OEMs and L&Ts (home OEMs) of the world, Jaju said.
“For us, all of you are equal. All our policies are designed in a manner in which all of you get equal opportunities. But one point that is now coming is that going forward, possibly we will not be importing anything. One can say that at the outset,” he mentioned.
In the final 4 months, the Centre has been reviewing all of the “Buy-Global” instances which can be within the contracting part proper now, Jaju mentioned.
Under “Buy-Global” procurement class, outright buy of defence gadgets — without having of subsequent indigenous manufacturing — from international and Indian distributors is permitted. Jaju mentioned the Centre has cancelled near Rs 60,000 crore value of “Buy-Global” instances.
“A little bit of difficult situation for the Lockheeds (foreign OEMs) of the world but I think you can substitute it with a string of projects….to design and develop the systems within our country,” he added.
