BENGALURU: The government will announce a separate ‘Make in India’ policy to boost private sector investment in defence and aerospace projects in April-May 2015.
The move comes on the backdrop of ‘long gestation’ periods for private sector companies interested in entering the defence and aerospace sector. “The Defence Procurement Policy, as a document, is also not a well articulated one and there are a lot of confusions. Besides, everything doesn’t need to be squeezed into it. So we are planning a separate policy on Make in India,” Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said at the 10th edition of Aero India 2015 here on Wednesday.
This would give a level playing field to private players, public sector undertakings and SMEs among others, the minister said and added that they are discussing various issues relating to taxation.
Parrikar said that they have sent various proposals to the finance ministry to make the environment conducive to take this forward.
He said that they would rope in private sector as well for key requirements of helicopters for both the military and civil aviation requirements.
“HAL needs to augments its production capability. Right now, it has the capacity to make 25-30 per year, but it has to be 50-100,” he said.
Earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that private sector in defence sector still remains ‘small’. “In India, the defence industry in the government sector alone employs nearly 200,000 workers and thousands of engineers and scientists. They produce an output of nearly $7 billion annually. It also supports a very large pool of small and medium enterprises. Our defence industry in private sector is still small,” he said.
Modi added that they were expanding the role of the private sector in major platforms as well. “Our goal is to provide a level playing field for all. We speak in terms of national capacity, not public sector or private sector.”
Inferring that global majors were forming partnerships with Indian private sector companies, Modi said that they are planning to build an industry which will have ‘room’ for everyone from public and private sector as well foreign firms as well.
Draft Policy on Legalising Lobbyists
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said that process is on for legalising lobbyists or middlemen representing various arms manufacturers. “In the next four to five weeks a policy on legalising lobbyists or middlemen representing various arms manufacturers across the world will be ready. The draft is ready, it will now need an approval from the Defence Acquisition Committee (DAC), which is expected in the next meeting and then the process of giving it legal sanctity will follow,” Parrikar said adding all issues relating to giving level playing field as well as dealing with blacklisting of firms will be addressed at the earliest.