Policy reforms like setting up order of priority of defence procurement from Indian companies, higher FDI cap and liberalized industrial licensing regime would accelerate indigenisation, GC Pati, secretary, defence production, ministry of defence said on Wednesday.

 

“We have significantly reduced entry barriers for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The technology development fund (TDF) would help SMEs in particular,” he said, while speaking at the DEFTECH 2014 being co-organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies at the defence research and development organisation (DRDO) headquarters here.

 

Sumit Mazumder, president designate, CII, said that Indian industry, both in public and private sectors, has developed a fair amount of capabilities. They should be given incentives to acquire state-of-the-art and critical technologies to foster the indigenisation, he said. The defence ministry’s procurement procedures are still very cumbersome and time-consuming. “In the best interest of everyone, the procurement cycle should be shortened,” he said.

 

“The DRDO has done marvelous work despite the technology denial regimes. The good work done by DRDO laboratories should be made available to the Indian industry for productionisation and commercialisation,” he added. 

 

Dr Sudarshan Kumar, chief controller research and development (CCR&D), DRDO, said, “If India has to become a global power by 2020 then we need to have a clearly defined roadmap for self-reliance through technology driven indigenisation.” 

 

For transfer of technology, a research and development base in industry is must. Indian spending on research and development is very low compared to the US and China. The government, Kumar said, needs to draw a self-reliance mission 2025 with clear milestones. “We should also start working on filling up the technology gaps especially in the areas of engines, materiel and infrastructure and so on,” he said.