The Department has announced a positive indigenization index as part of the efforts to achieve self-reliance in security manufacturing and underestimated imports by the Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs). The list contains 2,500 imported commodities which have already been indigenized and 351 high-value imported things which will be indigenized in the next three years. Out of 351 entities, 147 entities have already been indigenized
The Government has presented a complete updated ‘Make and Innovation’ approach to decrease dependence on components and encourage domestic manufacturing of security tools. The ‘Make and Innovation’ scheme has been presented in DAP-20 to promote indigenous innovation and the growth of safety tools through private participation with Administration and enterprise budget.
A sequence of Favourable Indigenization Inventories of defence weapons and tools which would not be imported from abroad have been promulgated. The first Positive Domestic list comprising 101 items was passed in August 2020, the second Positive Domestic List, including 108 items, was enacted in May 2021, and the third Domestic list containing 101 items was promulgated in April 2022.
Junior Defence Minister Ajay Bhatt conveyed this knowledge in a reported reaction to Santosh Kumar P in Rajya Sabha on Monday.
In sequence with the funding information for the financial year 2022-2023 of giving 25% of the Defence Research and Development (R&D) funding for the industry-led R&D, 18 effective venues have been supported by the Nation for industry-led Innovation and Development under Make I Make II, SPV Model and iDEX routes.
iDEX procurement has been streamlined, and timelines have been shortened from 2 years before to just five months by improving the trial operation. The Government has agreed on a Task with an expenditure of Rs 498.78 crore (2021-22 to 2025-26) to drive the creation and help startups in the defence and aerospace sectors. This will allow more than 300 startups to experience the new product and development tasks and keep 20 partner incubators.
Another list of DPSUs for indigenization of 107 Line Replaceable Brigades (LRUs)/Sub-systems of the high-value venue was announced on 28.03.2022. To date, 4 LRUs have been indigenized; 5 LRUs are at the preparation phase, and 31 LRUs are in the creation and growth phase.
A Domestic portal, SRIJAN, was established in August 2020 for DPSUs/OFB/Services with an enterprise interface to deliver development aid to MSMEs/startups/Industries for import substitution.
Boost Domestic Manufacturing
So far, more than 21,000 defence entities, which were earlier imported, have been shown on the outlet. 388 private dealers have voiced good in indigenizing more than 4,700 items, and so far, 410 items have been indigenized.
The Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS) has been developed to make 6 to 8 Greenfield Defence Testing Infrastructures in the nation and achieve ‘Aatmanirbharta’ in the security Testing Infrastructure for the domestic initiative.
As part of the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, the Administration arranged an event ‘, AiDef’ on July 11, 2022, where 75 defence-specific Artificial Intelligence (AI) effects were utilized for the first time by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. During the occasion, three AI developments of DPSUs were also selected for the demand in the market.