Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group, on Sunday welcomed the Defence Ministry’s announcement that it will introduce an import embargo on 101 items beyond a given timeline, to boost self-reliance.

Reacting to a tweet by FICCI lauding the decision, Mahindra said a partnership between the military and industry was long overdue.

FICCI’s tweet was in appreciation of the Ministry’s decision to “bifurcate the capital procurement budget for 2020-21 between the domestic and foreign capital procurement routes.”

“A separate budget head has been created with an outlay of nearly Rs 52,000 crore for domestic capital procurement in the current financial year,” Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had tweeted.

“Great move to earmark Rs 52K cr for domestic capital procurement. It fulfils a request by the FICCI Defence Committee to provide long-term visibility on defence procurement plans. Industry can now plan its capex & production capacity: @Prakashukla , Chair, FICCI Defence Committee,” FICCI had tweeted.

Retweeting FICCI’s tweet, Mahindra wrote, “The phrase ‘Military-Industrial Complex’ sounds ominous. But this partnership has been the source of enormous technology innovation in the US. Such a partnership has been long overdue in India... I hope the Defence Ministry will implement this plan vigorously.”

In a series of tweets, Singh said this decision was is in line with the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. The proposed list of items covered under the import embargo is worth almost ₹1,30,000 crore each, anticipated for the Army and the Air Force, while items worth almost ₹1,40,000 crore are anticipated by the Navy.

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