MUMBAI: Indigenisation of defence manufacturing is helping Small and Medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in India scale global heights, Jayant Patil, Member of the Board (Defence) and senior executive vice-president, Larsen & Toubro (L&T), has said.
The K-9 Vajra-T self-propelled gun, which was inducted into the Army on Friday, is being developed by L&T in partnership with South Korea’s Hanwha Land Systems. Defence Minister Nirmala said in her speech on Friday that although the first batch of 10 guns was imported from South Korea and assembled here, the next 90 guns would be largely manufactured indigenously.
Around 14,000 components of the weapons system are made in the country by over 200 manufacturers, Patil said.
“Even the initial systems, which were expected to be completely imported from Korea and assembled at the L&T facility at Hazira, had around 20% indigenous components,” Patil said. Vajra system owes its firing accuracy to the control system, which is indigenously developed.
“Indian people can understand Indian conditions better and hence, achieve qualitative superiority,” he added.