Indian Self Reliance Evident In Skyrocketing Military Exports

Last updated on March 27th, 2022 at 05:53 am

Under the Narendra Modi banner, India seems to have been selling arms and ammunition like hotcakes. And this has become evident as the Defence Ministry recently made a statement that the value of arms exports by India grew approximately six times since 2014, with the ongoing financial year registering Rs. 11,607 crore till now.

The self-reliance bigul sounded by Mr. Modi seems have had a good impact on the creative juices of the Indian engineers and the likes. This was confirmed as an answer to a question asked in the Lok Sabha by the junior Defence Minister Ajay Bhatt. In his response, he also added that during this period, many reforms and appropriate steps have also been taken up by the government to boost defence exports and enhance ease of doing business.

The Indian government has set an ambitious annual export target of around Rs. 36,500 crore by 2025. Bhatt said that the ‘corporatisation’ of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and its 41 factories into seven defence PSUs will also help in boosting exports.

A major export deal inked in January this year was the $375 million (Rs 2,770 crore) contract to export BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to the Philippines, which will pave the way for more such deals with the country as well as other Asean countries like Indonesia and Vietnam, as was reported earlier by a well-known Indian media house. India is currently in talks with countries, including Saudi Arabia and UAE, to export the BrahMos missiles and the Akash air defence missiles.

Here, the participation of the private sector has been seen as 90 percent. This is also evident of the Atma Nirbhar project that has been running across the board in India, since Modi took on the reigns as the Indian PM. A Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report of 2020 stated that India stands in the list of top 25 countries in defence exports. The defence ministry is also working on a Defence Production and Export Promotion Policy, which is learnt to be in its final stages.