The much-awaited Defence Procurement Procedure for year 2016 was approved by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday. The new DPP will be uploaded on the official website on March 28 and applicable from April 2 with stress on ‘Make in India’ policy of NDA Government.
Announcing this here after the nearly three-hour long DAC meeting, Parrikar said decision on issues like doing business with blacklisted companies and forging strategic partnership for big projects like building submarines and fighter aircraft will be taken in the next few weeks.
As regards the new DPP, he said the DAC approved chapters one, two, three, four, five and seven while consultations for chapter sic pertaining to strategic partnership were on. He said this chapter was an extensive exercise as the ministry has to take the approval of the finance ministry and the Cabinet Committee on Security(CCS).
Highlighting the point that focus was on ease of doing business, the minister admitted change of mindsets of officials was the need of the hour as they were scared of taking decisions due to allegations at a later stage. Parrikar claimed the DPP aimed at injection positivity and the mindsets were now changing adding there was too much secrecy attached to defence deals which was not needed.
Elaborating upon some of the salient features of the new DPP, he said DAC was empowered to put certain weapon systems if operationally required on fast track. However, it will not be norm, the minister said adding a committed chaired by the Defence Secretary will take the final call on clearing fast track projects.
Efforts were also on to give a big boost to small scale industries engaged in defence manufacturing as till now these units were working in a “stifling and choking” environment, Parrikar said adding priority will be given to indigenously designed and manufactured weapons by Indian industry. These industries will have to have more than 40 per cent indigenous content to bag contracts, he added.