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| French designed, Indian built Scorpene Attack Submarine |
Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — The Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) is likely to lay out in July the procedure for the appointment of strategic partners (SP) from among the private defense sector who would then be eligible for big-ticket defense projects, a senior MoD official said.
"The draft for SPs is now under formulation, as objections from the defense sector are now cleared," the official said.
Once applied, this policy reform would change how India buys weapons and equipment that is worth more than $150 billion during the next ten years.
"When implemented the MoD can give a big-ticket project like building of submarines or aircraft to preselected private sector defense companies with the 'strategic partners' tag," said Mahindra Singh, a retired Indian Army major general.
According to a senior executive with private defense company Larsen & Toubro: "The concept of SP is to provide MoD the option to execute capital-intensive programs in an expeditious manner through competent private sector yards. This way MoD does not have to go through the long and circuitous bidding process which delays the program."
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