Brushing aside concerns, Def Min firmly behind new, radical approach

Aiming to create homegrown private sector giants to take on global competition, the Manohar Parrikar led defence ministry will for the first time identify `strategic partners’ for major defence manufacturing projects, going ahead with a new, radical model for procurement.Top Defence Ministry officials have told ET that concerns by smaller companies and new entrants to the defence sector are ill founded and that the government is going ahead with the `strategic partnership’ model that will identify a handful of Indian companies for major projects worth over `10,000 crore that require a national effort to execute.

Making it clear that the strategic partnership model will be central to the defence procurement policy that is expected to be made public early next month, a senior official said that new entrants will also get opportunity to participate in the big defence projects as component manufacturers and suppliers. Read More…