New Delhi: As the week-long celebrations of Atmanirbhar Bharat ending on August 14, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh launched Department of Defence Production portal ‘SRIJAN’ which is a ‘one stop shop online portal that provides access to the vendors to take up items that can be taken up for indigenisation.’

Four contracts of Defence India Start-up Challenge under iDEX and four MoUs between industry partners and Defence PSUs were also signed in presence of the Minister while a number of Expressions of Interest and Requests for Proposal were also issued.

Speaking on the occasion, Singh said signing of these MoUs and contracts will lead to self-reliance in the technologies related to Defence Manufacturing.

He called upon the Indian industry partners to show complete commitment and take proactive participation in the pursuit of Indigenisation and self-reliance in the Defence Sector. He said, “Self-reliance in Defence manufacturing has been envisioned not only as domestic requirement but also with export perspective and can be made possible with concerted efforts. With these things in mind, the government has taken important steps like corporatisation of Entities, reforms in FDI limits and recently released negative list of import.”

The Minister said, “Till sometime back, for our defence procurement, we have been looking towards the best technologies available in the world. But now our outlook has changed. We are thinking on how to manufacture latest equipment ourselves or through Joint Ventures or transfer of technology.”

Commending DDP for creating SRIJAN portal, Singh said this will help industry partners to play active role in the goal of self-reliance in defence sector. Pursuant to Atmanirbhar Bharat announcement, Department of Defence Production, MoD has developed an indigenisation portal, srijandefence.gov.in, as “opportunities for Make in India in Defence”, which will give information on items that can be taken up for indigenisation by the private sector.

On this portal, DPSUs/OFB/SHQs can display their items which they have been importing or are going to import which the Indian Industry can design, develop and manufacture as per their capability or through joint venture with OEMs. The Indian Industry will be able to show their interest. The concerned DPSUs/OFB/SHQs, based on their requirement of the items and their guidelines and procedures will interact with the Indian industry for indigenisation.

The portal displays information in a structured way, which includes the item name, image and specification, values of imports, NATO Classification (indicative), etc. It also has a search facility.

In the first stage, DPSUs/OFB/SHQs have displayed those items which they have imported in 2019-20 and going to import in 2020-21, for the annual value of the items as Rs one million and above.

More than 700 startups and innovators responded to the three rounds of Defence India Startup Challenge (DISC), out of which over 55 startups/ individuals have been selected to receive innovation grants in 15 technological areas under DISC 1, 2 and 3, through the Prototype funding guidelines called “Support for Prototype and Research Kickstart” (SPARK), which entail provisioning of grants up to Rs 1.5 crore to the Startups on the basis of milestones through multiple tranches.