India plants to cut defence import bill by half

[Gabbar]

India plants to cut defence import bill by half

Hyderabad, Dec 23 (PTI) India plans to reduce its defence import bill from the present Rs 40,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore, Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju said today.

The Government needs more private participation to achieve this, he told mediapersons here after inauguration of defence and aerospace system integration unit belonging to Nucon Industries, a city-based defence equipment manufacturing company.

Presently, the defence import bill constitutes around 65 per cent of the total defence budget. The total budget for defence is around Rs 60,000 crore this year.

"Today we import 60 to 65 per cent of defence procurements and 35 to 40 per cent is made indigenously. The ground is being created to reverse the percentage over a period. This is not possible to achieve only through PSUs though. We need private sector participation to achieve this," Raju said.

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[Hulk]

Good if we are thinking about private sector. They can be of benefit.

 

[!!craft!!]

its a good move, but not before totally fulfilling our armed forces hardware requirements.

 

[MickyMouse]

A long term plan, will take 10-15 years to achieve, if we start now
Private sector coming in will bring greater collaboration, keep the money in the country and improve quality overall

A very good aim

 

[Markus]

Putting in place correct offset policy will ensure that atleast 30% of the money that goes outside of India will ultimately come back to India.

Its very difficult to completely stop relying on foreign weapons and we will continue to import for atleast next 2 decades untill Indain defence manufacturers achieve critical design expertise.

In the meanwhile, implementing offset policy will bring some of our money back into our economy.