There has been an improvement in the turnaround time for defence procurement after the steps taken by the government, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Speaking at a webinar, Modi said: “The scope of a sector that could generate crores of jobs was restricted. Today, we are moving towards the corporatisation of Ordinance Factories. The completion of this process will strengthen the workers and the armed forces.

“Our commitment to being self-sufficent in defence manufacturing is not merely symbolic. The formulation of a post for the Chief of Defence Staff has helped improve the turnaround of defence equipment procurements. It has helped scale up procurement of defence equipment, too,” he said.

He said that there will be much more opportunities for the domestic companies. “In the coming days, order size for domestic companies will be increasing significantly. To ensure this, a portion of the Defence Budget has been earmarked for domestic Procurement,” said Modi.

Commenting on the existing negative list of defence imports, Modi said that it will soon be expanded to include more items.

The Ministry of Defence has proposed a negative list of 101 equipments that will not be allowed to be imported in the country. Speaking at the webinar, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that the negative list of imports will form the bedrock for indigenisation of defence manufacturing in the country.

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