India’s Defence Procurement Procedures amended every year: Minister

India’s Defence Procurement Procedures (DPP) is amended every year to speed up procurement and bring in fairness and transparency, said India’s defence minister A.K. Antony. “Modernisation of the armed forces remains a top priority for us”, said Antony at a seminar organized by the Center of Air Power Studies, a New Delhi think tank. However, the modernization effort has not borne the desired results, he added. We must continuously reduce and even eliminate procedural delays and bottlenecks in our procurement procedures, he remarked stating this as the reason for the yearly amendment of the DPP. For the past four years, the DPP has been amended every two years. Deliberations to amend the DPP 2009 are currently on and some major changes such as offsets multiplication for technology import are said be in the offing. The minister hinted that some changes to the offsets policy was coming,“the discussions on the issue of offsets, in particular, would be of great interest and relevance”. Antony also hinted that India was aware of international concerns over India’s offsets policy, “while we are willing to learn from international experience, such deliberations also give us an opportunity to remove some undesired and needless misgivings on the issue”.