Heartening to see contribution of MSMEs in defence production go up by 200 per cent in 4 years: PM Modi

New Delhi, Apr 12 (KNN) In a bid to encourage the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in defence sector, Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his speech at the inaugural of DefExpo 2018 said that it is heartening to see the contribution of MSMEs go up by 200 per cent in a period of 4 years.

PM Modi said that the items that were earlier made exclusively by Ordnance factories, some of these items were de-notified so that the private sector including the micro, small and medium enterprises can enter that space.

“For encouraging the development of Micro and Small enterprises in the defence sector, the Public Procurement Policy for Micro and Small Enterprises– which was notified in 2012 – has been made mandatory from April 2015”, PM Modi added.

Informing about the positive results along the line, the Prime Minister said that In May 2014, the total number of defence licenses issued stood at 215. In less than four years, we have issued 144 more licenses through a much more transparent and predictable process.

From 2014 to 2017, the targeted offsets obligations were 1.79 billion dollars, of which 1.42 billion dollars’ worth of offsets were realized.

This is an achievement rate of close to 80 percent. Procurement from Micro and Small Enterprises by the Defence Public Sector Undertakings and Ordnance Factories has gone up from about Rs. 3300 crores in 2014-15 to over Rs. 4250 crores in 2016-17. This is an increase of close to 30 percent, the Prime Minister said. (With PIB Inputs) (KNN/DA)