The Indian Air Force Wednesday reached out to the domestic defence industry seeking their response on manufacturing eight military items, including simulators for Apache and Chinook helicopters, and communication systems.

Besides that, three projects of the army, an Indian light tank, an autonomous combat vehicle, and integrated surveillance and targeting system for mechanised forces, too, have been offered to the Indian industry for design and development under the categories of Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP)-2020.

The move aims at rolling out the government's initiative to indeginise large parts of the defence procurement of three services of the army, air force, and navy, which are heavily dependent on imports. The industry will be provided financial support for the prototype development of these projects, said the Defence Ministry.

"This is for the first time since the launch of Industry friendly DAP-2020 that Indian Industry has been involved in the development of big-ticket platforms such as Light tank and Communication Equipment with Indian Security protocols," the Ministry pointed out indicating the seriousness of the exercise.

The IAF, which organised a webinar, gave different presentations to the industry representatives to create awareness about the eight projects, three of them under Make-I and another five under Make-II categories, said the IAF.

Details of the meeting

The idea was to introduce and let the private industry know the IAF expectations and also hear their problems, said the air force sources present at the meeting. “Now, they have to come back with proposals on each of the projects briefed to them virtually,” the sources added

The list of projects was accorded ‘Approval In-Principle (AIP)’ by the collegiate committee of the Defence Ministry. Other projects of the IAF Airborne Electro-Optical pod with Ground-Based System, Wearable Robotic Equipment for Aircraft Maintenance, Airborne Stand-off Jammer and Design & Development of Automatic Take-Off/Landing Recording System (ATORS).

The IAF interaction with private players through the webinar was organised by the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM) — the apex body of the Indian defence industry.

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