Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday expressed the confidence that India will emerge as a net innovator and net exporter of defence technologies rather than a net importer, even as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced measures to expand the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) initiative meant to encourage start-ups in defence.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target of $5 trillion economy by 2024. Looking at the talent India possesses, I am pretty confident that we can become a $10 trillion economy in the next 10-15 years,” Mr. Singh said at ‘Def-Connect’, organised by the Ministry.
Subhash Chandra, Secretary Defence Production, said the aim was to fund 250 start-ups and achieve 50 tangible innovations in the next five years. “The MoD is in the process of seeking approvals of Rs. 500 crore for the purpose.”
Policy changes, he said, would be undertaken to incorporate the iDEX as a section in the Make-2 procedure of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP), which is currently under revision.
Speaking at the event, Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar said he was looking forward to iDEX “scaling up from supporting 44 start-ups at present to 440 in near future.”
Sanjay Jaju, Joint Secretary, Department of Industrial Production, outlined the progress of Phase I & II of the Start-up Challenge. The MoD was in the process of including few more incubation modules such as Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, he stated.
The iDEX would be funded and managed by the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO), formed as a not for profit company with nominal capital by Public Sector Undertakings Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), he said.
The Defence India Startup Challenge (DISC)-III was launched with one challenge from each of the three Services to prospective start-ups. The results of this would be announced at Defexpo in Lucknow next year. An iDEX Open Challenge was also launched, in which start-ups can pitch new innovative solutions for the Services.
A new iDEX logo, a dedicated portal, dashboard for real-time monitoring of the programme and a compendium of iDEX Guidelines were released on the occasion.
