Fifty Defence Companies To Be Created In India

India has set to create about 50 private companies in the defence sector to drive the process of domestic manufacturing and bring down dependence on imports with the ‘Make in India’ vision, Hindu Business Line reported on Tuesday.

“We want to treat private sector companies in defence at par with public sector companies. We have to focus on building 50-60 private sector defence companies as champions,” Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Amitabh Kant was quoted as saying.

The initiative is to make defence sector more competitive with the government liberalizing the FDI policy to attract foreign investment and technology, Kant added.

“We can’t expect a change to happen immediately. Results will take at least 18 months. I see huge investments from top global companies coming in,” Kant said.

The Centre raised the FDI cap in the defence sector to 49 per cent from 26 per cent last year. However, did not give in to demands by major global defence companies of increasing it to 51 per cent, to give them a controlling stake.

Prime Minister Narender Modi recently reiterated that if foreign companies bring in state-of-art technology, then the FDI limit could be increased to 100 per cent on a case-to-case basis.