India procured military equipments worth 24 Billion USD in the last five years, according to details provided by the government in Lok Sabha.
Minister of State for Defence, Ajay Bhatt said that major defence equipment that were imported included helicopters, aircraft radars, rockets, guns, assault rifles, missiles and ammunition.
The data provided by the minister on procurement of military hardware by the defence services pertained to the period from 2017-18 to 2021-22.
Bhatt said the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP 2020) with a focus on ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) and ‘Make in India’ introduced major policy initiatives for boosting indigenous defence capability and reduction of reliance on imports.
“Further, DAP-2020 provides the highest preference to Buy Indian (IDDM) category of acquisition and ‘Buy Global’ is only permitted in exceptional situations with specific approval of Defence Acquisition Council (DAC)/the Defence Minister,” he said in the written reply.
“During last five financial years (2017-18 to 2021-2022) and current financial year 2022-23 (up to December, 2022), total 264 capital acquisition contracts have been signed for procurement of defence equipment, out of which, 88 contracts accounting for 36.26 per cent of total contract value have been signed with vendors from foreign countries such as the US, Russia, France, Israel, Spain etc,” Mr. Bhatt said.
To a separate question, Mr Bhatt said the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is working on 55 ‘mission mode’ projects for a total sanctioned cost of ₹ 73,942.82 crore.
He said these are in the areas of nuclear defence technologies, air independent propulsion (AIP), combat suite, torpedo, fighter aircraft, cruise missile, unmanned aerial vehicle, gas turbine engine, assault rifle, warhead, light machine gun, rocket, advanced towed artillery gun system, infantry combat vehicle command, surface-to-air missile, anti-ship missile, anti-airfield weapon and glide bomb.