New Delhi: India has already achieved the distinction of becoming a global hub for manufacturing automobiles. Now graduating to making weapons, arms, ammunition, warships and planes for the international market and also for its own use.
‘Make in India’ in defense equipment manufacturing is no more a distant dream. The country is emerging as a supplier for international arms manufacturers and correspondingly is making more equipment for itself, eschewing imports.
India is mentioned at the 23rd spot among top 25 exporters of weapons, with Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Armenia being its top customers. From a meagre Rs 1941 crores in 2014-15 financial year India’s weapon export has increased to Rs 12,815 crores in the financial year 2021-22 making it obvious that India is emerging as a global leader in exporting arms and ammunition.
A written reply in Rajya Sabha by MoS, Defense Ajay Bhatt revealed while in 2017-18 defense equipment worth Rs.4682 crore was exported by India, in 2018-19 the figure stood at Rs 10,746 crore. It further stated that in 2019-20 India exported defense equipment worth R 9,116 crore and in 2020-21, weapons worth Rs 8,435 crore was exported by India and the figure stood at Rs 12,815 crore.
Speaking in the Rajya Sabha Bhatt also said that the government has accorded approval worth Rs 2,46,989 crore under various categories of capital procurement for the armed forces from 2019-20 to 2021-22 and in 2022-23 (as on September 2022).
"The government, in the last three years that is from 2019-20 to 2021-22 and current year (2022-23 up to September 2022), has accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) to 163 proposals worth Rs 2,46,989.38 crore approximately, under various categories of capital procurement which promote domestic manufacturing as per DAP-2020," he said.
The AoN is the initial approval for any defence project. Procurement is done under the framework of the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP). Bhatt said the share of domestic firms in the total procurement was at 54 per cent in 2018-19. It jumped to 59 per cent in 2019-20 and to 64 per cent in 2020-21, he said.
This year, it has increased to 68 per cent for domestic procurement, of which 25 per cent has been earmarked for procurement from the private industry, the minister said. "With focus of the government on indigenization and procurement of defence products from the domestic resources, the expenditure on defence procurement from foreign sources has reduced from 46 per cent to 36 per cent in the last four years that is from 2018-19 to 2021-22," Bhatt said.
To a separate question, he said the defence imports in 2021-22 was 50,061.68 crore while it was Rs 53,118.58 crore in 2020-21, Rs 47,961.47 crore 2019-20 and Rs 45,705.57 in 2018-19.
