New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh emphasized India’s imperative to reduce reliance on imported military equipment, citing it as potentially “fatal” for the country’s strategic autonomy. Singh, speaking on Monday, underscored the Modi government’s commitment to bolstering domestic manufacturing in defense.
Addressing a conference, Singh highlighted past challenges faced by India due to its dependence on defense imports during “difficult times”. He expressed concern over the nation’s vulnerability if such reliance persisted.
Singh revealed that India’s annual domestic defense production has surged beyond the landmark Rs 1 lakh crore, a significant increase from around Rs 44,000 crore in 2014.
“We will be able to maintain strategic autonomy only when arms and equipment are made in our own country, by our own people. We worked towards this, and we also saw positive results,” Singh affirmed at the ‘DefConnect 2024’ conference.
He stressed India’s inability to afford dependency on imports in critical sectors, emphasizing that such reliance could jeopardize strategic autonomy.
“A huge country like India cannot remain dependent on imports in any important sector. If we continue to rely on imports of defense equipment and arms, it will make us dependent on other countries. This dependency can be fatal for our strategic autonomy,” Singh cautioned.
Singh argued that without self-reliance, especially in defense, India would struggle to assert independent stances on global issues aligned with its national interests.
“Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when our government came to power in 2014, we saw that a large part of India’s defense hardware is imported. If a significant portion of a country’s security-related equipment is imported, then that country may have to face many difficulties in critical situations,” he elaborated.
“This has also happened with India in the past. When India was in difficult times, we faced trouble due to our dependence on imports for arms. Therefore, as soon as we came to government, we emphasized that as a nation, we cannot remain dependent on arms imports,” Singh recalled.
On that occasion, a new scheme named ADITI was launched today to promote innovations in critical and strategic defense technologies. Under this scheme, startups can now receive grant-in-aid of up to Rs 25 crore. The ADITI scheme aims to nurture youth innovation and propel India forward in the field of technology.
