Article Posted on : - Feb 01, 2013

NEW DELHI (PTI): Observing that investments by both private and public sector firms in research and development were "not enough", Indian Defence Minister A K Antony has asked the military industry to abandon its "miserly attitude" in this regard.

"By looking at our aim of faster indigenisation, I feel you have to invest more in R&D. Except few sectors, even now, budget for R&D in private sector and public sector is not enough. You have to abandon this miserly attitude and invest more," he said while addressing a Navy seminar, on Thursday.

In the past also, the Defence Minister had urged the Indian defence industry to spend more in R&D to speed up the modernisation process.

He said Government has been keen to encourage the industry to realign its business processes for strategic alliances and joint ventures.

Antony said the Defence Ministry was coming up with the revised Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) which will come into effect from April 1 this year.

Describing offsets as an integrated part of the DPP to promote indigenization, he said, the policy has enabled greater participation of the defence industry in the country.

Under the offsets policy, foreign vendors bagging deals worth over Rs 300 crore have to invest back at least 30 per cent of the worth of the contract back into the Indian defence, civil aerospace and homeland security sectors.

Navy chief Admiral D K Joshi also stressed on the need for the local industry to increase indigenisation in the critical defence technology sector.