Rajnath Singh was speaking at the launch of the draft Defence Procurement Procedure, 2020. (Photo Credit: PTI File )
New Delhi:
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said that the global economic slowdown will not have any impact on India’s defence procurement. Rajnath Singh, who was speaking at the launch of the draft Defence Procurement Procedure, 2020, expressed hope that the global economy may improve in the coming two to five months. On being asked if the global economy’s condition and the coronavirus pandemic would affect Indian defence procurement, the defence minister said, “There would certainly be impact of global economy’s condition on all nations. I feel there would be hardly any impact of global economy’s condition on India’s defence procurement.”
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh: The procurement procedure will be for the next five years. Also, we can't rule out the possibility that the global economy will improve in the next 2 to 5 months. https://t.co/CNWsxlkOYQ
— ANI (@ANI) March 20, 2020
"We can’t rule out a possibility that global economy will improve in next 2 to 5 months," he added. Moreover, for the first time ever in India’s military history, Ministry of Defence has come with a proposal to formally lease critical equipment from a friendly nation.
The government on Friday came up with the draft Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2020 on, wherein it introduced ‘leasing’ as a category to get defence equipment at affordable rates.
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The new category in the Draft Defence Procurement Procedure 2020, which was unveiled by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, will allow the leasing of equipment including warships, transport aircraft can be leased.
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The ‘Leasing’ category has been brought to facilitate acquisition in addition to existing 'Buy' and 'Make' categories. It will substitute huge initial capital outlays with periodical rental payments.
(With PTI inputs)
