By: Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — India’s Ministry of Defence has created a new scheme to fund research and development by micro, small and medium-sized defense enterprises (MSME) with the aim of benefiting the domestic defense industry.
The Technology Development Fund, or TDF, will provide the defense companies with up to $1.5 million per project.
"The stated objective of the TDF is to fund the development of defense and dual-use technologies that are currently not available with the Indian defense industry, or have not been developed so far. This is intended to create an ecosystem for enhancing cutting-edge technology capability for defense application," said Amit Cowshish, the MoD's former additional financial adviser.
While the proposal to raise a dedicated fund to support R&D for MSME was first mooted in 2011, "it took the initiative of the ruling National Democratic Alliance government to put into place such a fund," a senior MoD official claimed.
Nitin Mehta, a defense analyst here, said $1.5 million "appears too low" and will cover very few companies.
The senior MoD official agreed that since the maximum funding allowed for a single project is only $1.5 million, TDF is limited to only funding eight to 10 projects.
Though Cowshish differed: "This is not a small amount to meet the cost of development of technologies. ... I think it is good to be pragmatic and cautious while treading into unknown territory."
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