On September 2, Prime Minister Narendra Modi commissioned the first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, the largest ship ever built in India's maritime history. Also, PM Modi commissioned the housing state-of-the-art automation features at the Cochin Shipyard.

During the commissioning, PM Modi spoke about making defence products in India, indigenously. Further, the defence ministry had released a list of items that should be procured from Indian companies instead of being imported.

India is the largest importer in the world when it comes to defence products. So between FY17 and FY20, 90 contracts worth Rs 1.76 lakh crore was signed with foreign vendors alone. India accounts for 11 percent of the global arms sales currently. More than 40 percent of our defence equipment is actually imported.

Also Read: Hindustan Aeronautics at 52-week-high after announcing it assembled gas turbines for INS Vikrant

In the last 10 years, defence expense is grown at a compounded annual growth rate of about 9 percent whereas the capex has grown by only about 6 percent. Now, this indicates a shortfall in our defence capacity requirements and that is exactly where the opportunity lies.

To discuss opportunities in defence, CNBC-TV18 spoke to Jayant Patil, senior executive vice president for defence at L&T; Commodore P R Hari, managing director at Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers and Amit Mahajan, of director business development of Paras Defence & Space Technologies.

Watch the video for more

First Published:Sept 21, 2022 4:53 PM IST