Rao Inderjit Singh, Minister of State for Defence Production

(Rao Inderjit Singh, Minister of State for Defence Production)

In quite a few recent years, the Ministry of state for Defence production has come up with flying colours despite of many leaps and bounds and the backbone being all this major time growth is praiseworthy dedication and hard work of Rao Inderjit Singh, Minister of State for Defence Production.

Rao Inderjit Singh as a Minister of State for Defence Production has taken many ground-breaking and result oriented steps to connect the potential of India’s private sector in defence industry by providing proper domain to work upon. Under his able governance government had announced a policy where it is permissible for private Sector to take up production of any Defence items under licence. Here the major contribution from the Industry is expected in the development and production of equipment required in the future by the Armed Forces.

Rao Inderjit Singh has completely eradicated the misconception that India’s defence offset policy has been framed exclusively to promote export of goods produced by the public sector and the private sector is unlikely to benefit from it.
At the same time few result oriented guidelines are brought out under the Defence Procurement Procedures 2006 so as to make clear distinction between public sector and private sector or preferential treatment for Public Sector Unit.
He has made the Integrated Defence Headquarters preparing a long term capability plan, which indicates the future long term requirements. The Integrated Defence Headquarters is also preparing a public version of this capability plan to be shared with the Industry.

Not only this, but joint ventures will also be promoted provided the Indian company and the foreign partner do find advantages in making the joint venture. Mean to say if the cost of the equipment is going to reduce giving an advantage to the joint venture in the competitive environment then joint ventures will occur. If joint ventures are made only to provide upfront for supply of fully formed foreign material then they will not be formed for the reason that the foreign vendor will be able to quote a better price without having an intermediary.

During his tenure private partnership in defence production is being encouraged for bringing about healthy competition, which would subsequently result in better products for the defence forces. After implementing all this India is now a bigger importer of defence technology, and it is expected that in another ten years it would become an exporter of defence technology, especially in the neighbourhood. According to Rao Inderjit Singh, there is a strong need for some better change in the existing model of defence production. Instead of taking a decision and making a product at the top level and then passing it on to the developing agencies, India should adopt foreign countries model wherein private players offer different products to the defence forces, who, in turn, go for the best one.

His recently promulgated Defence Procurement Manual had enabled people at its best to courageously go ahead for defence deals. Since it was being noticed that because of fear of being subjected to unnecessary inquires, people were hesitant about signing big defence deals. Hence, things were kept pending and by putting the Defence Procurement Manual in place, ministry of defence has given them a protection, that if they take a decision according to the manual, then nobody can point a finger towards you. Under his proficient guidance with extraordinary dedication the defence ministry is cheering success with hefty profits and still he is providing his expertise to entire nation.