New Delhi, June 25 (KNN) In pursuance of ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Government, the ‘Make’ Procedure has been simplified with provisions for funding of 90% of development cost by the Government to Indian industry and reserving projects not exceeding development cost of Rs 10 Crore (Government funded) and Rs 3 Crore (Industry funded) for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), said Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister.

In a written reply to Rajya Sabha, he said “Make in India’ program is being used by the Government for defence procurements by categorising the capital acquisition proposals under ‘Buy (Indian-IDDM)’, ‘Buy (Indian)’, ‘Buy and Make (Indian)’, ‘Make’ and ‘Strategic Partnership Model’ categories of Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP)-2016.

There are more than 8000 MSMEs which are among the vendor base of OFB & Defence PSUs supplying various items to them, he added.

In addition, an innovation ecosystem for Defence titled Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) has been launched in April 2018.

iDEX is aimed at creation of an ecosystem to foster innovation and technology development in Defence and Aerospace by engaging Industries including MSMEs, Start-ups, Individual Innovators, R&D institutes and Academia and provide them grants/funding and other support to carry out R&D which has potential for future adoption for Indian defence and aerospace needs.

Also, Government has set up the Technology Development Fund (TDF) to encourage participation of public/private industries especially MSMEs, through provision of grants, so as to create an eco–system for enhancing cutting edge technology capability for defence applications, he mentioned.