Vedanta chairman Anil Agarwal calls for corporatisation of defence PSUs

KOLKATA: Vedanta chairman Anil Agarwal on Saturday pressed for further liberalisation of the defence sector and called for corporatisation of defence factories to make the country self reliant in respect of arms and ammunition.

He said that there are 52 defence factories for manufacturing arms and ammunition in the country but most of them are running at 10 per cent capacity. "We (India) can be the largest producer of arms and ammunition. If the defence factories are corporatised it will bring in a new way of thinking," Agarwal said while addressing the inauguration of a post graduate programme for executives virtually from London.

Vedanta is hopeful of commencing semi conductor production in India in the next two years, he said. "Semi conductors are like the sutradhar (facilitator) for any industry. In the next two years we should start producing semi conductors in India," he said replying to a question.

The company had signed a MoU in February this year with Foxconn to form a joint venture to manufacture semiconductors in India.

Stating that there is a huge outgo in terms of imports of oil and defence products in India, Agarwal remained bullish about oil and gas output from India as it has a reserve of 300 billion barrels of oil reserves. "We need to produce at least 50 per cent of the requirement for energy security," Agarwal said.

He expressed optimism about bauxite mine privatisation as India holds immense potential for aluminum production as the demand will shift from steel in several applications. "Bauxite mining will open up in the next one to two years," he said.