Chidambaram mocks Centre's 101 items embargo list; says 'promised bang, gave whimper'

Following the announcement of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh issuing an import embargo on 101 items, Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram mocked the Defence Minister, accusing him of for promising a ‘bang’ on a Sunday morning and ending with a ‘whimper’. Slamming the central government's 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' push, Chidambaram said that 'Import Embargo is high sounding jargon'.

"What it means is we will try to make the same equipment (that we import today) in 2 to 4 years and stop imports thereafter!", he said in his tweet.

Criticising the Defence Ministry decision further the Congress leader said "the only importer of Defence equipment is the Defence Ministry. Any import embargo is really an embargo on oneself. What the Defence Minister said in his historic Sunday announcement deserved only an Office Order from the Minister to his Secretaries!"

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Defence Minister's announcement

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in a massive statement announced that the Ministry of Defence would embargo imports of 101 items to boost indigenous defence production. He said the Ministry of Defence has prepared a list of 101 items for which there would be an embargo on the import beyond the timeline indicated against them. This decision will offer a great opportunity to the Indian defence industry to manufacture the items in the negative list by using their own design and development capabilities or adopting the technologies designed & developed by DRDO to meet the requirements of the Armed Forces, Raksha Mantri said.

"PM Modi has given a clarion call for a self-reliant India based on the five pillars, that is Economy, Infrastructure, System, Demography and Demand and announced a special economic package for Self-Reliant India named ‘Atamnirbhar Bharat’" Defence minister said in a tweet.

READ | India issues import embargo on 101 defence items; delivers boost to 'Aatmanirbhar' push

Ministry of Defence has bifurcated the capital procurement budget for 2020-21 between domestic and foreign capital procurement routes. A separate budget head has been created with an outlay of nearly Rs 52,000 crore for domestic capital procurement in the current financial year. More such equipment for import embargo would be identified progressively by the DMA in consultation with all stakeholders.

A due note of this will also be made in the DAP to ensure that no item in the negative list is processed for import in the future. All necessary steps would be taken to ensure that timelines for production of equipment as per the Negative Import List are met, which will include a co-ordinated mechanism for handholding of the industry by the Defence Services. The embargo on imports is planned to be progressively implemented between 2020 to 2024. Our aim is to appraise the Indian defence industry about the anticipated requirements of the Armed Forces so that they are better prepared to realise the goal of indigenisation, Raksha Mantri asserted.

The announcement by Singh comes right after India received the first 5 Rafale aircraft from France, which is seen as a mega boost to Indian Air Force's firepower.

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READ | Big scoop on Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh's 'important announcement' accessed: What we know