17,500 Crore Rupees Reserved by Defence Ministry for Private Sector Buys This Year

17,500 Crore Rupees Reserved by Defence Ministry for Private Sector Buys This Year

The defence ministry has reserved over Rs 17,500 crore this year for procurement from the private industry on the back of notifying a negative import list, as part of its measures to encourage domestic manufacturing and create a local ecosystem. The ministry, under instructions of defence minister Rajnath Singh, has also resolved to cut down procurement time to two years to shorten delays in induction of weapon systems and may expand the import negative list further to bring more equipment into the domestic kitty, a top official said. While in the past it would take over five years to complete a procurement, this has been brought down to an average of three-and-a-half years, and the target now is to further shorten it to two years, defence secretary Ajay Kumar said. “This year a decision has been taken to ensure that what we buy from India is not merely from the public sector. Nearly 25% of the total domestic procurement will be from the private industry,” Kumar said at a Special Centre …