Tezpur (Assam), Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said the government is developing a strong base of domestic defence industrial ecosystem to make the country a strategic economy. Addressing the 21st Convocation of Tezpur University here, Singh said his ministry is making all efforts to achieve the target of becoming self-reliant in the defence sector.

“Our government is developing a strong base of domestic defence industrial ecosystem to make India a strategic economy”, he said.

Highlighting the various steps taken by the Ministry of Defence, Singh stressed that for the first time, the import of arms went down while exports rose.

“We issued five positive indigenisation lists, under which 509 defence equipment have been identified whose manufacturing will now be done indigenously.

“In addition, we have also issued four positive indigenisation lists of Defence Public Sector Undertakings, in which 4,666 items have been identified and these will now be manufactured in our country,” he added.

Talking about the domestic defence manufacturing, Singh said that the production has crossed the record figure of Rs 1,00,000 crore for the first time. “The total value of India’s defence exports, which was Rs 1,521 crore in 2016-17, has increased almost 10 times to reach a record level of Rs 15,920 crore in 2022-23,” he stated.