New Delhi: Addressing a gathering at the opening of the three-day technical festival of IIT Roorkee – Cognizance 2016 – the minister, striking a confident note, said that “nuclear and other sanctions imposed on India ended up helping out in creating its own technology”. Without naming previous regimes, Parrikar said things are taking time to change since it’s difficult to “shake off” decades of “inertia”.
“Our new defence procurement policy not only aims to incentivise and promote indigenous production but also cut the red tape and remove bureaucratic hurdles, which have delayed plans in the past,” he said. “What this vision gives to stakeholders is an ecosystem for innovation and development… The new DPP will of course expedite business and make defence a modern sector. The modalities have all been worked out and the final clearance to the draft should be given by March 21 and by month end it will be notified,” Parrikar said.
During the ‘Make in India Week’ programme in Mumbai last month, the defence minister had said the new policy would come into effect from April 2. “The DPP will have a new category of indigenously designed, developed and manufactured (IDMM) as the most preferred category for procurements, which aims to boost domestic private and small-scale industry,” he had said, adding, the NDA government seeks to make the defence market “more lucrative” for the Indian industry.
Parrikar, an IIT-Bombay alumnus, exhorted the crowd of aspiring engineers at the sprawling IIT-Roorkee campus to value “knowledge over degree” and think out of the box. “Your director mentioned the three legs on which an idea or an institution stands – theory, practical and innovation. “But there is the fourth leg and that is the ecosystem to allow that innovation and development and we seek to provide that kind of ecosystem,” he said.