Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, on Thursday, projected that annual Indian defence exports will touch ₹35,000 crore by 2024, from the current level of ₹17,000 crore.

Singh also said that he has no doubt about India emerging as among the three major economies of the world by 2030 and the defence industries will have an important role to play.

“India’s defence export is growing. In the last two years our export has been ₹17,000 crore, but keeping in view your (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) capacity in the successive years, I can say that by 2024 ₹35,000 crore. I am confident about it,” the Defence Minister said at the Karnataka ‘Rajyotsava’ event organised at the HAL here.

Defence PSUs’ role

The minister told the gathering that India can not remain dependent on imports for long and the Indian companies, especially defence public sector units, will have to play a major pro-active role in achieving the goal of ‘Make In India’ as envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“We don’t want to see India as an importing nation. Instead, based on your strength, I can say that India is sure to become an exporting nation. Nobody can stop her,” Singh said.

In this regard, he hailed the HAL for being among those defence public sector units, whose performance in operations and finances was excellent. “By March 2019, the company’s turnover was ₹19,705 crore, and the HAL gave shareholders 198 per cent healthy dividend,” he said.

The atmosphere in Karnataka is conducive for science and technology, which provided base for HAL to have its headquarters here in Bengaluru, he noted.

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