Major initiatives taken by the government to promote India's defence exports

NEW DELHI: Looking to boost not just the ' Make in India' drive, but also encourage defence exports the government has taken several steps to increase the number of export orders that Indian companies are getting in the defence sector.

Some of the major initiatives are:

> Formulation of a Defence Export Strategy outlining the policy and procedural initiatives to be taken by the government.

> Constitution of a Defence Export Steering Committee (DESC) to deliberate and decide policy and procedural issues related to defence exports.

> The SOP for issue of NOC for export has been simplified and streamlined and has been put in the public domain to make the process transparent and unambiguous.

> The processing of receiving the applications for NOC for export and the process for issuing NOC have been made online.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has a negative list of countries for defence export and views of MEA are taken into account before granting No Objection (NOC) for export to such countries, said Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh in a written reply in Lok Sabha recently. The companies getting export orders apply to the Department of Defence Production (DDP) for NOC for export and the same is issued as per the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), which has also been put in public domain.

The details of the defence equipment exported to various countries in last one year by Defence PSUs, Ordinance Factory Board (OFB) and Private Sector Companies (based on the NOCs issued) are: