101 defence items, weapons on import ban ‘negative list’

■ No import of 69 items by Dec, all by 2025; domestic industry boost

Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday announced a “negative list” of 101 defence platforms and weapons whose import will be banned progressively, starting December 2020, to boost the indigenisation of defence production under the “Atma Nirbhar Bharat” initiative.

The negative list includes artillery guns, assault rifles, corvettes, sonar systems, transport aircraft, light combat helicopters (LCHs) and radars.

By December 2025, the import of all defence items on the list will be totally barred, while 69 will not be imported from December 2020 itself.

The defence ministry claimed with this embargo, contracts worth `4 lakh crores will be placed with domestic industry in the next five to seven years. Of these, equipment and weapons of `1,30,000 crores each are likely for the Army and Air Force, while almost `1,40,000 crores worth of items are anticipated by the Navy.

“This decision will offer a great opportunity to India’s defence industry to manufacture items in the negative list by using their own design and development capabilities, or adopting the technologies designed and developed by DRDO to meet the requirements of the armed forces,” the defence minister said. He said the ministry wanted to apprise the defence industry of the armed forces’ needs so they are better prepared to realise the goal of indigenisation.

The department of military affairs, led by CDS Gen. Bipin Rawat, will identify more items to be added to the negative list in the days ahead.

The negative list also includes wheeled armoured fighting vehicles, with an indicative import embargo date of December 2021, of which the Army is likely to contract almost 200 for over `5,000 crores. Similarly, the Navy is likely to place demands for submarines with an indicative import embargo date of December 2021, of which it expects to contract about six at a cost of almost `42,000 crores.

The defence ministry said the negative list was prepared after several rounds of consultations with all stakeholders, including the Army, Air Force, Navy, DRDO, defence PSUs, the Ordnance Factory Board and private industry.

The Centre recently hiked the FDI limit in defence manufacturing to 74 per cent, up from 49 per cent, to encourage foreign defence companies to set up factories in India.