India among world's largest defense importers: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday spoke in a webinar of the Ministry of Defense on bringing self-sufficiency in the defense sector.

He said, "India has a centuries-old experience of making weapons and military equipment. Before independence, we used to have hundreds of ordinance factories. In both world wars, large scale weapons were sent from India. But after independence, for many reasons this system was not strengthened as much as it should have been.

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PM Said "The condition is that even for small arms, we have to look towards other countries. Today, India is among the world's largest defense importers. It is not a matter of pride. It is not that people of India do not have talent. It is not that people of India do not have strength. You see that when Corona started, India did not make a single ventilator. Today India is manufacturing thousands of ventilators."

Prime Minister Modi has said that India is working fast in the direction of reducing imports in the defense sector.

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He said, "India with the ability to reach Mars could also make modern weapons but it became very easy to procure weapons from outside. And the nature of human beings is also such that whatever is the easy path, walk on it. If you go to your house today and count it, you will know that you know how many such foreign things are being used for years. The same has happened with the defense sector.

But today's India is working hard to change this situation. Now India is busy increasing its capabilities at a fast pace. There was a time when we had to shut down our own fighter jet Tejas in files.

But our government relied on the ability of its engineers, scientists and Tejas and today Tejas is flying in the sky gracefully. A few weeks ago, an order of 48 thousand crores has been placed for Tejas. With this, when MSME sector will be connected, then how big business will be.

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Our soldiers had to wait long for bulletproof jackets too. Today we are not only making bullet proof jackets for ourselves, but are also increasing our capabilities to export to other countries.

In this year's budget, the commitment to modernize the army has been strengthened further. After nearly a decade and a half, the capital outlay in the defense sector has been increased by 19 percent. After independence, there is so much emphasis on increasing private sector participation in the defense sector. To bring the private sector forward and make the work easier, the government is emphasizing their ease of doing business."

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