<< Workers of the Mazagon Dock Limited cheer after undocking of the first Scorpene-class submarine in Mumbai on Monday (6-4-2015)
By Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — Claims by the Indian government that it has cleared huge sums of money over the last year for defense production by domestic companies are misleading, analysts said.
The Indian government said that since coming to power on May 26, 2014, it has approved defense proposals worth over $20 billion, 90 percent of which has gone to the domestic sector under its "Make in India" policy.
However, defense analysts say the projects have only begun the procurement process and these could still take five to seven years to be finalized.
A Ministry of Defense official claimed that the $20 billion figure mainly consists of procurement of six conventional submarines with air independent propulsion technology plus another six nuclear submarines, costing over $15 billion. In addition, light utility helicopters worth more than $2 billion will be made by the domestic sector.
But defense analysts said the bulk of these proposals were canceled global tenders.
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