India’s defence and aerospace manufacturing sector, which is at present worth ₹85,000 crore, is expected to touch ₹ 1-lakh crore by next year and ₹ 5-lakh crore by 2047, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Saturday.

“At present, India’s defence and aerospace manufacturing market is worth ₹85,000 crore. I believe, in 2022, it will increase to ₹1- lakh crore. When I talk about ‘India Beyond 75’, I see the defence and aerospace manufacturing market in India to be ₹5-lakh crore by 2047. The present contribution of private companies is ₹18,000 crore in the market of ₹ 85,000 crore. According to the current situation, more than ₹1- lakh crore will be the contribution of the private sector in the market to ₹5 -lakh crore in the future,” he noted.

To realise its vision of making India a global manufacturing hub, Singh said, the government has taken several measures, including increasing the defence capital outlay by 18.75 per cent in the last Budget. He added that 64 per cent of our total capital outlay, which is about ₹ 70,221 crore, has been reserved for domestic procurement.

The minister appreciated the fact that the country’s defence exports have grown by 325 per cent in the last five years and exuded confidence that India will not only achieve its export target of ₹ 35,000 crore by 2024-25 but will also become a net exporter of defence equipment. The private sector accounts for 95 per cent of the country’s defence exports, he said.

Addressing the 94th annual general meeting of the industry association, FICCI on the theme of ‘India Beyond 75’, Singh emphasised on the government’s vision to make India a global defence manufacturing hub in the coming times, stressing that the focus is to modernise armed forces and create a strong ‘Aatmanirbhar’ defence industry which can help in safeguarding the country from conventional and non-conventional, present and future security threats.

On the Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX), the minister said that while the initiative is solving technical problems of the armed forces, it has identified many technologies such as military security systems, secure hardware encryption devices, unmanned surface and underwater vehicles, 4G/LTE strategic local area networks, radar, artificial intelligence-based image analysis satellites.

Digital tech

Stressing that future wars will be fought in the digital war zone inter-connected through Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, Singh urged educational institutions to focus on specialised courses in defence technologies to meet the demand of professionals who can convert the future challenges into opportunities and bolster the security framework of the country.

Singh highlighted the recent visits of Defence Ministers of US, Russia and France adding that “Countries across the world have friendly relations with us and we have told them that we wish to manufacture defence equipment in India as national security is our top priority.”

He also mentioned about the recent agreement with Russia, worth more than ₹5,000 crore, to manufacture over six lakh AK-203 Rifles in Amethi, inviting every country to ‘Make in India, Make for India and Make for the world’.

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