Ministry of Defence (MoD), in a landmark step, has offered four projects to the Indian Industry for design & development under Make-I category of Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020.
- The industry will be provided financial support for prototype development of these projects.
The list of projects which were accorded ‘Approval In-Principle (AIP)’ by Collegiate Committee of MoD is as follow:
- Indian Air Force: Communication Equipment with Indian Security Protocols (Routers, Switches, Encryptors, VoIP Phones and their software)
- Indian Air Force: Airborne Electro Optical pod with Ground Based System
- Indian Air Force: Airborne Stand-off Jammer
- Indian Army: Indian Light Tank
This is for the first time since the launch of industry-friendly DAP-2020 that Indian Industry has been involved in development of big ticket platforms such as Light tank and Communication Equipment with Indian security protocols.
In addition, AIP has also been accorded to following five projects under industry-funded Make-II procedure:
- Indian Air Force: Full Motion Simulator for Apache Helicopter
- Indian Air Force: Full Motion Simulator for Chinook Helicopter
- Indian Air Force: Wearable Robotic Equipment for Aircraft Maintenance
- Indian Army: Integrated Surveillance and Targeting System for Mechanised Forces
- Indian Army: Autonomous Combat Vehicle
About DAP 2020
- DAP 2020 has been aligned with the vision of the Government ofAtmanirbhar Bharat and empowering Indian domestic industry through Make in India initiative with the ultimate aim of turning India into a global manufacturing hub.
- With the announcement of new FDI Policy, suitable provisions have been incorporated like new category ‘Buy (Global – Manufacture in India)’ done to encourage foreign OEMs to setup ‘manufacturing/maintenance entities’ through its subsidiary in India while enabling requisite protections to domestic industry.
- The categories of Buy(Indian-IDDM), Make I, Make II, Production Agency in Design &Development, OFB/DPSU and SP model is exclusively reserved for Indian Vendors .
- A new category ‘lease’ has been introduced to enable operating of assets without owning thereby, substitute huge initial capital outlays.
- The Offset guidelines have been revised, wherein preference will be given to manufacture of complete defence products over components and various multipliers have been added to give incentivisation in discharge of Offsets.