New Delhi, Mar 23 (KNN) Aiming to emerge as one of the top 5 defence producers in the world by 2025, Nirmala Sitharaman defence ministry on Thursday unveiled the rough draft of Defence Production Policy 2018 (DProP 2018).

Since implementation of DProP requires high degree of inter-ministerial coordination therefore views and suggestions are welcomed before March 31 for modifications in the DProP 2018 as thereafter it will be tabled before Union Cabinet for approval.

The policy aim is to make India self reliant by 2025 and capitalize on India’s information technology strengths to “make India a global leader in the cyberspace and AI (artificial intelligence) technologies.”

Moreover, DProP 2018 aims to achieve a production level of Rs 1,700 billion in defence goods and services by 2025, involving additional investment of nearly Rs 700 billion and creating employment for nearly 2 to 3 million people.

In this direction, 13 key areas specified in the draft are manufacturing fighter aircraft, medium lift and utility helicopters, warships, land combat vehicles, autonomous weapon systems, missile systems, gun systems, small arms, ammunition and explosives, surveillance systems, electronic warfare (EW) systems, communication systems, and night fighting enablers.

Further, the new policy commits to build a 80-100 seater civilian aircraft in the coming next 7 years. However, policy is silent on the fate of ongoing global procurements of the platforms to be indigenized, including single-engine and carrier-borne fighters, infantry small arms, maritime surveillance systems and others.

Sitharaman, DProP 2018 is setting a target of raising India’s export to Rs 350 billion (about $5 billion) by 2025.

With a view to achieve this target, DProP 2018 will exhibit Indian capabilities in Defence Expo (in Chennai next month) and Aero India (on alternate years).

Further, promote exports through government-to-government agreements and offer lines of credit to buyer countries, set up export offices in buyer countries and Defence Export Organization jointly with industry, and accelerate end-to-end export clearances to boost defence exports.

Though, it has not been clearly mentioned in the policy that what products India will export to achieve this target.

In order to boost foreign direct investment (FDI) into defence production, DProP 2018 proposes allowing 74 per cent FDI under the automatic route for “niche technology areas." 

The new policy elaborates on the two “defence industry corridors" – in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

Further policy specified that each corridor would have “one major cluster of defence production units around an anchor unit".

In addition, DProP 2018 shed light on various ideas and opinions like encouraging automotive component manufacturers to upgrade skills to transition to aerospace design and manufacture, conducting “hackathons" to resolve specific problem areas, setting up of Defence Innovation Hubs for encouraging start-up and bringing micro, small and medium enterprises into defence manufacture. (KNN/YV) (With inputs from a media report)