Defence sector procurement guidelines by next month

The Central government will put in place comprehensive defence procurement guidelines by next month and indigeneously made products will be given first priority in procurement, said Manohar Parrikar, Union Defence Minister.

Adressing a media conference at the Make in India event in Mumbai on Monday, the minister said his government has cleared all the bottlenecks that are related to private sector participation in defence procurement and that can create at least additional one lakh skilled jobs. "There are constraints on us as some key manufacturers abroad may not entirely transfer technologies to us, but if they agree, we can go for partial transfer to make those in India," he said.

So far, production from defence sector public sector units were fully absorbed by the defence forces and now the government has directed them to look for 10 per cent production for exports, he said. These companies have also been asked to provide better quality and after sales services, as in the past there were incidents on defence forces complaining about the quality and after sales support for products procured from indigenous manufacturers, he said.

Earlier, there were complaints on delay in sanctioning procurement licences for private vendors and now his Ministry has been able to clear the backlog, he said.

The defence department is also displaying some of the indigenously developed defence equipment at the exhibition at MMRDA grounds, Mumbai.