MUMBAI (Reuters) – India will stop importing 101 items of military equipment in an effort to boost domestic defense production, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said on Sunday.
PHOTO PHOTO: Indian Minister of Defense Shri Rajnath Singh speaks to the media following the US-India Ministerial Dialogue 2 + 2 in 2019 at the State Department in Washington, US, December 18, 2019. REUTERS / Joshua Roberts
Singh said the move follows a call from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for confidence in defense. India is one of the world’s top armed importers.
India has accelerated military purchases in the wake of a clash in June between Indian and Chinese troops, with the government approving the purchase of 33 Russian fighter jets and upgrades to 59 other aircraft in July.
Tensions between India and China are at their highest in years after the clash in a disputed border region in the western Himalayas in which India lost 20 soldiers.
Military experts say India is short of combat plans, helicopters and field guns due to years of low funding.
“The embargo on imports is planned to be implemented progressively between 2020 and 2024,” Singh wrote in a series of tweets.
“Our goal is to approach the Indian defense sector beyond the expected requirements of the Armed Forces, so that they are better prepared to achieve the goal of indigenization.”
India traditionally buys military equipment from Russia, but increasingly buys purchases from the United States and Israel. Modi has called several times to cut it depending on the army of expensive imports.
Between April 2015 and August 2020, the Indian defense services had about 3.5 trillion rupees of contracts of items currently on the waiting list.
The government estimates that about 4 trillion rupees worth of orders will now be placed with the domestic sector over the next five to seven years.
The list of embargoed items includes high-tech weapon systems, artillery guns, sonar systems, transport aircraft, light fighter helicopters (LCHs), Singh said.
The Ministry of Defense has also split the budget for purchase of capital for 2020/21 between domestic and foreign tender routes, he added.
“A separate budget head has been created with a circulation of nearly 520 billion rupees for domestic capital gains in the current fiscal year.”
($ 1 = 75,0120 Indian Rupees)
Report by Swati Bhat; Edited by William Mallard and Michael Perry
.
