Government has taken several steps to enhance self-reliance in indigenous design, development and manufacturing of defence products. Three Positive Indigenisation lists comprising of 310 (101, 108 and 101 respectively) items have been promulgated by Department of Military Affairs (DMA), Ministry of Defence on 21st August 2020, 31st May, 2021 and 07th April 2022, respectively with the timelines indicated against them beyond which the items would be procured from indigenous sources. The products have been offered to the industry to come forward for design & development.
Further, in continuous pursuit of self-reliance in defence manufacturing and to minimize import by DPSUs, Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence has notified two Positive Indigenisation Lists (PILs) of sub-systems/assemblies/sub-assemblies/components on 27th December, 2021 and 28th March, 2022. The 1st list contains 2500 items, which are already indigenized and 351 items which have been taken up for indigenisation. The 2nd list consists of 107 strategically important Line replacement units/major sub-assemblies. The list of these items and their details are available on SRIJAN portal for Industry to show their interest. The items are notified with a timeline beyond which there would be an embargo on their import. Till date, 154 items out of 235 items from the 1st Positive Indigenisation List and 4 items out of 107 items from the 2nd Positive Indigenisation List have already been indigenized.
With focus of Government on indigenisation and procurement of defence products from the domestic resources, the expenditure on defence procurement from foreign sources has reduced from 46% to 36% in the last 4 (four) years i.e. from 2018-19 to 2021-22. Moreover, the Government, in the last four years i.e. from 2018-19 to 2021-22, has accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) to 162 proposals worth Rs 2,51,130 crore approximately, under various categories of Capital procurement from domestic sources.
Further, the timelines for embargo on imports has been spread from December, 2020 to December 2028, so the assessments of savings on foreign exchange and opportunities for employment cannot be done at this stage.
