Defence Minister Shri AK Antony today urged Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) to make sincere and sustained efforts to reduce the dependence on imports to the maximum extent possible. Addressing the ceremony of Raksha Mantri’s awards for excellence for OFB and Defence PSUs here, Shri Antony said “while in the era of globalisation, it is not possible to completely do away with imports, particularly for a growing nation like ours, still the extent of our continuous dependence on foreign sources is not desirable and the situation must change”. It can be achieved only by strengthening our research and development capabilities, he said.
Highlighting the recently notified revised defence offset guidelines, he said. it recognizes Transfer of Technology and investment in “kind “as eligible for discharge of offset obligations. He said that technology acquisition by DRDO for specific technologies will be treated as an eligible offset. In the era of changing times and stiff competition from private sector, the time has come for OFB and Defence PSUs to shed their complacency, as their time of enjoying a monopoly in the market is over, he remarked.
Shri Antony gave away various awards of excellence in the field of Ordnance factories and DPSUs. In the institutional awards category, “excellence in performance” award were jointly shared by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Bengaluru. In the “Division/Factory/Shipyard awards category”, best performing division of DPSUs, award went to Military Radars Unit, BEL, Bengaluru. While Rifle Factory Ishapore bagged the best performing factory award in OFB, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd (GRSE), Kolkata got best performing Shipyard award.
The Chief of Naval Staff Admiral DK Joshi, Secretary (Defence Production) Shri RK Mathur and several others senior officers from Ministry of Defence and the Services attended the function.