Govt set to revamp weapons purchase policy
With the country's defence market poised to touch an all time high of a billion US dollars by next year, Government is all set to revamp its weapons purchase policy to make sure frontier arms technology takes shape in the country.
By PTI |
NEW DELHI: With the country's defence market poised to touch an all time high of a billion US dollars by next year, Government is all set to revamp its weapons purchase policy to make sure frontier arms technology takes shape in the country.
For the second time since it came into force in 2002, Government is undertaking a comprehensive revamp of the defence procurement policy that could include setting up of a mechanism to register arms agents, a defence official said on Tuesday.
"We would have a new policy ready by April this year", new Defence Production Secretary Pradeep Kumar said amplifying that the revamp was a means to fine-tune arms purchases through experience gained over the past few years.
Kumar said the highlight of the revamp would be to focus on new concept in India of defence offsets. "We want to use these offsets to make sure that we gain the knowhow to design and field futuristic weapons systems".
The thrust on means to gain capability to build weapons systems of the future comes as the Indian defence industry, even after being operational for the past four decades, still struggles to build fighters, tanks and missiles.
Asked whether the revamp of the policy would entail setting up of separate organisation to deal with Defence offsets, Kumar said though he directly did not deal with the framing of the policy, "but I can say that in the exercise all options would be considered".
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