New Delhi: In keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for self reliance or ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has taken several initiatives to strengthen the indigenous defence ecosystem.

As part of this, a DRDO delegation met Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on August 24 to apprise him about 108 systems and subsystems which have been identified for designing and development by the Indian industry only.

This initiative will pave the way for Indian defence industry to develop many technologies towards building an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’.

DRDO will also provide support to industries for design, development and testing of these systems on requirement basis. All the requirements of these systems by R&D establishments, Armed Forces, and other security agencies can be met through development contracts or production orders on suitable Indian industry. This will allow DRDO to focus on design & development of critical and advanced technologies and systems.

The Organisation has been partnering with industry for realisation of its systems. Collaborating with DRDO in the development of major weapon systems the Indian industry has matured to a stage where they can develop systems on their own. Indian industry has progressed from a ‘build to print’ partner to ‘build to specification’ partner.

The present industry base for DRDO consists of 1,800 MSMEs along with DPSUs, Ordnance Factories and large scale industries. DRDO has already taken major initiatives through various policies to involve Indian industry as Development cum Production Partners (DcPP), offering its technology to industry at nominal cost and providing free access to its patents.

This initiative will support the fast growing Indian defence industrial ecosystem, and would help the industry to contribute towards ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ in a big way.