Building A Positive Sentiment

THE ALLOCATION OF defence in India’s Union Budget is approximately $34.53 billion and 31.1 per cent of the defence budget is spent on capital acquisitions.

- Atul Punj

Sixty per cent of defence related requirements are met by imports, which offers a huge opportunity for import substitution.

Defence product development gestation is long and most available technologies have been dependent on international platforms. Some Government institutions have done a commendable job of setting up a diverse engineering and manufacturing footprint and the DRDO has developed several platforms in India, at the same time the pace needs to accelerate to reduce India’s dependence on imports. Here the private sector together with global arms manufacturers can play a major role as they will move fast to rapidly expand the footprint in India.