Ingenious design and manufacture in defence

There is a visible impetus on the ingenious design and manufacture of defence equipments in India. With four ongoing projects under the ‘Make-IN’ category, and another 56 proposals are known to have been accorded ‘Approval in Principal’ under Make-II category. Out of these 23 proposals have been accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN). Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is known to have undertaken 233 projects over the past three years. Among the projects work is underway on new defence equipments such as cruise missile, hypersonic missile, anti-ship missile, extended range anti-submarine rocket, mounted gun system, ammunitions, electronic warfare system, radars, torpedos, high endurance autonomous underwater vehicles to name a few. AoN has been accorded to 45 DRDO developed systems over the last three years for induction into services. It is also known that to promote an indigenous design and development of defence equipments, ‘Buy IndianIndigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured (IDDM)’ category under DAP is being prioritised for procurement of capital equipment. A testimony to this is the Ministry of Defence notifying a ‘Negative list’ of 101 identified items and embargoing their import. Looked at as a step to attain self-reliance in the defence segment. Out of the 9370 Defence items, erstwhile imported, the Indian industry including automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are known to have expressed interest for 1864 items so far.