But the Indian Navy has recently planned to induct 43 indigenously built ships and submarines and import only two to fill the requirement for 45.

Keeping in view need to reduce imports in this strategic sector and develop state-of-the-art technology at home, the Indian Defence Minister AK Antony inaugurating two-day NAVARMS – 2013 - 3rd International Seminar and Exhibition on Naval Armaments - jointly organized Jointly by CII and Indian Navy here on Thursday urged both the public and the private sectors in defence production to give up their “miserly attitude” and set up robust R&D in their units and become globally competitive.

He said that the offset policy has enabled greater participation of the defence industry in India by the private sector. The revised offset guidelines which came into effect from August last year include multipliers to incentivize investment in MSME and facilitate technology acquisition. The need to strengthen the monitoring mechanism for the implementation of offsets has been addressed by establishing of the Defence Offset Monitoring Wing under the Defence Acquisition Council.

“I hope that offset as mechanism will be fully utilized by the private industry in conjunction with the foreign collaborations, towards armament indigenization and manufacturing”, Antony said.

He said that the Government has been keen to encourage the industry to realign its business process for strategic alliances and JVs while stepping up the R&D efforts to remain globally competitive especially in critical technology areas. Government policy has been to facilitate absorption of proprietary technologies by companies with strong technology background and skills.

The Minister further said that the introduction of “Buy and Make (Indian)” category in the Defence Procurement Procedure was a significant that has been designed to enhance indigenisation.

“With the opening up of defence industry sector in India to 100% Indian private sector participation with FDI permissible up to 26%, I hope to see the industry gradually assuming the role of system integrator and manufacturer of complete defence equipment and systems”, Antony said.

He informed that the Government was in the process of revising the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) which would be implemented from the next financial year..

The Chief of Indian Naval Staff Admiral DK Joshi informed that the Navy has been engaged in upgrading its capabilities and pacing up the programme for encouraging indigenisation of defence production.

“However, about 70% of the defence hardware are being imported, particularly in high end critical technology segment,” he said.

The Naval Chief also informed that the Indian Navy has planned to induct 43 indigenously built ships and submarines and import only two to meet its current requirement.

He appreciated the policy advocacy work taken up by CII. He made a special reference to CII-BCG Study on Creating A Vibrant Domestic Defence Industry Sector and all the recommendations of the report including streamlining the current structures and procurement procedures. Indian industry should utilize the opportunities created through defence offsets. Strong Indian industry can help Indian Navy in its quest to achieve higher levels of indigenization.

The Chairman CII Defence Core Group on Strategic Projects & Chairman, Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering Company Limited, Nikhil Gandhi said that there was need to create a vibrant indigenous defence manufacturing base in the country. Therefore, a strong defence industrial base with the active involvement of private sector can only fulfill all the present and futuristic requirements of Indian Navy that too on time bound basis and without any compromise with the quality of products.

Principal Advisor & Head CII Defence, Aero & Security, Gurpal Singh said that there exist immense opportunities for Indian and global companies to collaborate to co-develop and co-manufacture technologies and products in India not only for the Indian market but eventually for the global requirements. This is another step towards reducing the import dependence and creating entire system integration capabilities in both public and private sector companies in India.