Rajnath Singh, the defense minister, announced a new program on Monday to encourage new ideas in important and key defense technologies. Under this program, start-ups can get up to ₹25 crore in funding for research, development, and new ideas in military technology.
Singh said at DefConnect 2024, a defense conference, “The ADITI scheme will encourage new ideas and help the country make huge strides in technology.” Acing Development of Innovative Technologies with iDEX, or ADITI, stands for “Innovations for Defense Excellence.”
The scheme will give ₹750 crore in aid from 2023 to 26. Its goal is to create about “30 deep-tech critical and strategic technologies in the proposed timeframe,” according to a statement from the defense ministry. The statement also said that it wants to make a “technology watch tool” to help close the gap between what the armed forces want and need and what the defense innovation environment can do.
“New technologies are being made because times are changing.” We need to get ahead in technology if we want to become a developed country. Singh said, “Our country needs to become a knowledge society.”
He called “getting a hold on state-of-the-art defence technology” as the most crucial aspect for achieving self-reliance due to the increasing role of cutting-edge technology in modern warfare. “We can master technology by either using the newest ideas from other countries or coming up with our own.” Both ways are being worked on by the government.
Singh said that the country can’t keep relying on imported weapons and systems because that would be bad for strategic autonomy and the government’s goal of becoming self-sufficient in the defense manufacturing sector. He said that India can’t make decisions on global problems on its own that are in its own best interests if it doesn’t have self-reliance.
“We can only keep our strategic autonomy if our own people make the weapons and gear we use.” We’re working toward this, and things are going well so far. In 2014, we made about ₹44,000 crore worth of defense goods at home. Today, we’ve made over ₹1 lakh crore, and the number keeps going up.
India has sharpened its attention on the defence manufacturing sector during the last five to six years and taken several measures to achieve self-reliance. They want to stop the import of certain weapons, systems, and parts, set up a different budget to buy military equipment made in the country, raise the foreign direct investment limit from 49% to 74%, and make it easier for businesses to operate.
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