Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday announced that the country’s defence exports have scaled to unprecedented heights and crossed Rs 21,000 crore mark for the first time in the history of Independent India.
”India’s defence exports have reached to the level of Rs 21,083 crore in the financial year 2023-24 which is a spectacular growth of 32.5 per cent over the previous fiscal,” he wrote on ‘X’.
Earlier, the Ministry of Defence (MoD), in a press release, said the exports in the last fiscal were to the tune of Rs 15,920 crore. The recent figures indicate that the defence exports have grown by 31 times in the last 10 years as compared to FY 2013-14.
The defence Industry, including the private sector and Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs), have made tremendous efforts in achieving the highest-ever defence exports. The private sector and the DPSUs have contributed about 60 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.
In addition, there has been a rise in the number of export authorisations issued to the defence exporters during FY 2023-24. From 1,414 export authorisations in FY 2022-23, the number jumped to 1,507 in FY 2023-24.
A comparative data of two decades i e the period from 2004-05 to 2013-14 and 2014-15 to 2023-24 reveals that there has been a growth of 21 times in the defence exports. Total defence exports during 2004-05 to 2013-14 were Rs 4,312 crore, which has gone up to Rs 88,319 crore in the period from 2014-15 to 2023-24.
The remarkable growth has been achieved due to the policy reforms and ‘Ease of Doing Business’ initiatives brought in by the Government, in addition to the end-to-end digital solution provided to the Indian industries for promoting defence exports. This growth is a reflection of global acceptability of Indian defence products and technologies.