#AtmanirbharBharat: Defence ministry to put embargo on import of 101 items, tweets Rajnath Singh

Team Udayavani, Aug 9, 2020, 10:27 AM IST

New Delhi: Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday, August 9 said that India is now ready for the big push to the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Rajnath’s announcement comes a day after senior military commanders from India and China held talks on reducing tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

In a series of Tweet Rajnat wrote, “The Ministry of Defence is now ready for a big push to #AtmanirbharBharat initiative. MoD will introduce import embargo on 101 items beyond a given timeline to boost indigenization of defense production,” he added.

“Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given a clarion call for a self-reliant India based on the five pillars, i.e., Economy, Infrastructure, System, Demography & Demand and announced a special economic package for Self-Reliant India named ‘Atamnirbhar Bharat’,” added another tweet.

“Taking a cue from that evocation, the Ministry of Defence has prepared a list of 101 items for which there would be an embargo on the import beyond the timeline indicated against them. This is a big step towards self-reliance in defense. #AtmanirbharBharat,” he wrote.

“This decision will offer a great opportunity to the Indian defense industry to manufacture the items in the negative list by using their own design and development capabilities or adopting the technologies designed & developed by DRDO to meet the requirements of the Armed Forces.”

“The list is prepared by MoD after several rounds of consultations with all stakeholders, including the Armed Forces, public & private industry to assess current and future capabilities of the Indian industry for manufacturing various ammunition & equipment within India,”he added

“Almost 260 schemes of such items were contracted by the Tri-Services at an approximate cost of Rs 3.5 lakh crore between April 2015 and August 2020. It is estimated that contracts worth almost Rs 4 lakh crore will be placed upon the domestic industry within the next 6 to 7 years,” he wrote

“Of these, items worth almost Rs 1,30,000 crore each are anticipated for the Army and the Air Force while items worth almost Rs 1,40,000 crore are anticipated by the Navy over the same period. #AtmanirbharBharat”

“The list also includes, wheeled Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) with indicative import embargo date of December 2021, of which the Army is expected to contract almost 200 at an approximate cost of over Rs 5,000 crore. #AtmanirbharBharat”

“The embargo on imports is planned to be progressively implemented between 2020 to 2024. Our aim is to appraise the Indian defense industry about the anticipated requirements of the Armed Forces so that they are better prepared to realize the goal of indigenization.”

All necessary steps would be taken to ensure that timelines for production of equipment as per the Negative Import List are met, which will include a co-ordinated mechanism for handholding of the industry by the Defense Services.

More such equipment for the import embargo would be identified progressively by the DMA in consultation with all stakeholders. A due note of this will also be made in the DAP to ensure that no item in the negative list is processed for import in the future.

MoD has also bifurcated the capital procurement budget for 2020-21 between domestic and foreign capital procurement routes. A separate budget head has been created with an outlay of nearly Rs 52,000 crore for domestic capital procurement in the current financial year.