Arun Jaitley, in his capacity as the country’s Defence Minister, said that the arms procurement process for all the three services —Army, Navy and Air Force — has to be expedited.
Jaitley said, “Procurement has been a constraint. The new government is fully aware of it. National security is an issue which has always been a priority issue for us and, therefore, while balancing the resource constraint and making available all the resources that are required for national security is going to be the approach of the government.”
The major challenge, Jaitley said, is that the country needs more procurement and faster procurement.
On the question of allowing more foreign investment in Defence, Jaitley said: “wait for four more weeks.”
The minister was in the city to commission two fast patrol vessels Achook and Agrim for the Indian Coast Guard. The ships have been designed and built by Cochin Shipyard Ltd.
With these two additions, the total number of fast patrol vessels with the Coast Guard now stands at six.