In line with the government’s policy of opening up manufacturing to the Indian private sector, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said that Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) have to compete with the private sector to build domestic manufacturing base and reduce imports.
“The emphasis is to use our entire potential as a country to expand rapidly and therefore the policies are also being liberalised to allow a fair competition between the DPSUs and the private sector… A healthy competition between the two will certainly bring out the best potential in both the areas,” Mr. Jaitley said after giving away the Defence Minister’s awards for excellence to DPSUs.
The recent policy on Strategic Partnerships (SP) approved by the Defence Ministry “factors in both these contents”, he noted.
The SP policy, which is part of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP), intends to open up manufacturing of four major defence platforms for the Indian private sector.
“The capacity of the DPSUs and their order profiles to keep them busy will also be taken into consideration and slowly but surely in highly specialised areas we also need to explore larger defence manufacturing with private sector participation,” he stated.
Competition is always the best guarantee for efficiency, price control and it provides multiple opportunities and options, he noted.
“The more we learn to live in a competitive environment, the more our professional skills and competence gets upgraded,” he added.
