Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday announced a list of 101 items that the Defence Ministry will stop importing. These items will no longer be imported but procured from domestic sources like private sector players or defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs).
The main aim of this initiative is to boost indigenous production according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mission of Atma Nirbhar Bharat that is Self-Reliant India. India has been among the top three defence importers in the world, the government wants to reduce the dependence on imported items in defence and give a shot in the arm to the domestic defence manufacturing industry hence the Ministry has decided to halt imports on 101 items mentioned in the ‘negative imports list’.
Announcing the policy, Rajnath Singh said that the Defence Ministry is “now ready for a big push to Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative” and the ministry will introduce “import embargo on 101 items beyond given timeline to boost indigenisation of defence production”. Singh said that this presents an opportunity for the nation’s defence industry to manufacture the items in the embargoed list by using their own design or by adopting the technologies developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
The list was introduced on 9 August (Sunday) and includes various defence equipment. The items mentioned in the negative imports list include water jet fast attack craft to survey vessels, pollution control vessels, light transport aircraft, GSAT-6 terminals, radars, unmanned aerial vehicles, to certain rifles, artillery guns, bullet proof jackets, missile destroyers, etc. The list also includes wheeled Armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs), with an embargo date of December 2021, “of which the Army is expected to contract almost 200 at an approximate cost of over ₹ 5,000 crore,” the ministry said. Almost 260 schemes of such items were contracted by the Tri-Services at an approximate cost of ₹ 3.5 lakh crore between April 2015 and August 2020. It is estimated that contracts worth almost ₹ 4 lakh crore will be placed upon the domestic industry within the next 6 to 7 years.
After much deliberation with the defence services this list was announced but it wont come into effect immediately. Singh said that the “embargo on imports is planned to be progressively implemented between 2020 to 2024” and the government wants 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”.
The policy wasn’t unexpected as in early May,Singh has taken cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “clarion call” of “a self-reliant India based on the five pillars, i.e., Economy, Infrastructure, System, Demography & Demand and announced a special economic package for Self-Reliant India named ‘Atamnirbhar Bharat’”. Also Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced on May 16 that the government was working on a negative imports list.
The Defence Minister announced that the ministry “has also bifurcated the capital procurement budget for 2020-21 between domestic and foreign capital procurement routes” and 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”.
This is said to be a tremendous effort towards self-sufficiency and promotion of domestic manufacturers. Even though there have been mixed reactions coming from various personalities , this is overall meant to be a great initiative.
