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copter deal fallout
New Delhi, February 20 Chastising the services and the officialdom, he said: “There is a tendency, when we go abroad, we see so many modern equipment and (want to) immediately get it through the import route, that is landing us in trouble.” He was speaking at a function on army air defence this morning. The function was organised in collaboration with the CII. He went on say that the easiest way to get modern equipment is to change this “import mindset” while adding “import is the last resort not the easiest resort that mindset we have to change.” He said the first attempt should be to find out if that equipment could be obtained from somewhere in the country itself. If that was not possible, only then the import route should be resorted to, he said at the function where Army Chief General Bikram Singh was also
present.
“We cannot waste a single penny of Indian taxpayers’ money for greedy players,” he said. Indigenisation was the ultimate answer, he said. “Made in India, will make us proud,” he said. Depending too much on imports would land us in trouble, Antony said. “I feel our armed forces, the government, the DRDO and the industry must work together so that India can reach to maximum level of indigenisation within a reasonable time,” he said. “We will have a second look at the defence production policy as well as the defence procurement policy so that we can speed up indigenisation,” he added. “We are living in the
dangerous surroundings, so armed forces need the most modern equipment at the earliest. We must
have a second look about our priority. Opt for import only as the last option,”
he suggested. A situation of “zero imports is not possible, but maximum effort should be to go indigenous”, he said. Expressing anguish at the copter scandal, he said in spite of taking so many precautions, such things were happening again. “I got an email from abroad about some foul play in defence deals and corruption by one Abhishek Verma. Immediately, we sent that email to the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate. Now that man is in jail. But even after all this there are people who are not learning lessons. This means we have to further tighten our mechanism,” he said.
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