Making his debut in the Lok Sabha on Friday, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said India is striving to reduce dependence on imported components, while admitting that it may not be economical to make certain items indigenously.

In 2013-14, almost 40 per cent of defence procurement worth ₹38,202.66 crore was from abroad.

Out of the ₹93,216.93 crore total procurement in 2013-14, ₹55,014.27 crore or 59 per cent was from indigenous sources, he said.

When Konda Reddy of Telangana Rashtra Samithi questioned the figures since they did not specify the foreign components used in indigenous manufacture, Parikkar admitted that generally “figures do hide more than they reveal”, adding that “this was the principle of statistics”.

There was indigenisation in 50 per cent of the products manufactured here and 70 per cent in some cases, he said, admitting that “very few products were 100 per cent indigenous”. In 2012-13, indigenous sources accounted for nearly 64 per cent of total defence procurement, which had touched ₹83,090.18 crore. At that time, procurement worth ₹52,719.38 crore was from indigenous sources, while the foreign part was ₹30,370.80 crore.

In 2013-14, the US was the largest foreign supplier of defence equipment with procurement worth ₹13,441.99 crore, followed by Russia (₹11,625 crore), France (₹4,575.32 crore) and Israel (₹1,234.65 crore).

When asked by Adhir Chowhdury of the Congress if India had addressed the issue of intellectual property rights related to indigenous defence equipment, Parrikar said foreign parts “cannot be made by way of jugaad (managed) or some other way”, adding that the Government will decide on specific cases.

He said the Defence Research and Development Organisation and public sector undertakings had been asked to increase procurement of indigenous content.

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