Centre push to private defence production

The Cabinet Committee of Security (CCS) on Wednesday put its stamp on the defence ministry’s "Strategic Partnership" model to involve the Indian private companies in the manufacture of four high-tech defence equipment – fighter aircraft, helicopters, submarines and armoured vehicles and battle tanks.

Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, who reported the model to the CCS headed by the Prime Minister, pointed out in a media briefing later that this was one major step under the "Make in India" policy to involve the private sector in the manufacture of the defence equipment that were so far mostly bought from abroad.

"This is our start of building up the defence capacity," he said pointing out that one private company will be selected as the strategic partner to tie up with the original foreign players to produce each of the four equipment.

Asked how soon the strategic partners will be selected, Jaitley said: "As fast as we can. The defence preparedness necessitates procurement and manufacture domestically... For each platform, one private sector strategic partner will be chosen”.

The policy of involving the Indian private sector in the defence production while keeping in mind defence PSU’s capacity was in the making for the last one year and Jaitley cleared it only recently as the defence minister before putting it before the cabinet committee.