‘Need to become a hub of defence manufacture due to our neighbours’

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday India’s neighbourhood has thrown up an important challenge of national security with the country facing insurgency, which requires the country to become hub for defence manufacturing.

“We are destined to have permanent neighbours, we can’t alter them. And that neighborhood itself has thrown up an important challenge of national security,” Jaitley said on Sunday while speaking at 9th Convocation of Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT) at Girinagar, near Pune.

The defence minister said India’s growth is yoked to the technological growth, especially in the field of manufacturing. He stressed that India needs to be independent in manufacturing, particularly with respect to defence technology.

“No country perpetually continues to secure itself against wars, by only depending on others for its armaments and equipments, which are of extreme importance to them. And therefore, the dictates of national security are that we become an important manufacturing hub. So, if economy requires us to become a manufacturing hub, security requires us to become a hub for defence manufacture,” Jaitley said.

He encouraged both government and private institutions, to positively use India’s large population by training these “human minds” in technology. This, Jaitley said, needs to be done to cover up the critical gap of growth that has been created over the years by conservative policies of the previous governments.

Adding that it is no more a governmental prerogative, but also a private-sector prerogative to strengthen India’s technological base, Jaitley said, “The new India is confident and not defensive. It is willing to globally integrate, share knowledge and also get it from outside, to improve upon itself, from within. We are blessed with the IITs and DRDO institutions, and a very large number of private institutions with the infrastructure for the creation of technology-oriented minds.”

The defence minister while taking a dig at previous government, said the change has been facilitated by the policies formulated by the present regime, as it has “broken away from the restrictive past, with intent to unleash both public and private entrepreneurship and innovative minds of India”.