Hit by defence procurement scams, India will now focus on buying locally-made defence products to shake off the ignominy of being the world’s top importer of arms, apart from tightening the screws on military acquisitions to prevent corruption.
This was the main thrust of the latest Defence Procurement Procedure 2013 (DPP-2013), that was made operational from Saturday.
The new DPP “aims to balance the competing requirements of expediting capital procurement, developing a robust indigenous defence sector and conforming to the highest standards of transparency, probity and public accountability, while laying a strong emphasis on promoting indigenisation and creating a level playing field for the Indian industry,” the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a release here.
In the foreward to the DPP document, Defence Minister A K Antony expressed the hope that the defence industry, as well as the procurement agencies, will find the DPP-2013 to be “a progressive step” aimed at expediting the procurement process as a whole. “A higher preference has now been accorded explicitly to the Buy (Indian), Buy and Make (Indian) and Make categorisation, besides bringing further clarity in the definition of ‘indigenous content’ and simplifying the Buy and Make (Indian) process,” the ministry said.
Besides this, the validity of the ‘Acceptance of Necessity’ (AoN) -- the MoD nod for allocating budgetary funds for a procurement -- has been brought down to a year from the current time limit of two years before which the tendering process should begin.
If tenders are not issued within a year of AoN, the government approval would lapse and a fresh procurement proposal will have to be processed again.