Earlier, India was dependent on imported defence equipment, but now most of the ammunitions used by the defence personnel are made in India, she said.
“I am not saying we don’t import at all. Rafale has been imported. S-400 has been imported. Missiles are getting imported, but we also produce our own missiles.
“We produce our own missiles completely indigenously…some with patents taken from elsewhere. BrahMos is a classic example of what Russia-India cooperation has given us,” she said during an interaction with students of various colleges and universities here.
Sitharaman, who has also served as the defence minister, further said while India still has import components in its defence production, the country is largely producing equipment for precision operations.
Referring to an article, she said a defence expert expects that the United States of America probably will have to now recast its defence production in light of what has happened in the India-Pakistan clashes.
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“Our Operation Sindoor has brought in so many different aspects of India’s defence production strategy, not just production…but how the defence forces integrated them into their scheme of things and didn’t have a problem using equipment bought from somewhere, let’s say Israel,” the minister said.Sitharaman stressed that the mastery of technology integration across the three armed forces is something that can truly be studied by defence experts.
“The scale and extent to which our defence forces have demonstrated prove that in 21st-century warfare, here’s a country which has achieved something, which no other country has,” she added.
The Minister further said that the Operation Sindoor is singularly a big contribution to warfare, technology, indigenisation, and a great integration of India’s defence forces. It is not about physically crossing borders, it is about using our technology to strike deep into enemy territories”.
Following the terror attack in Pahalgam on April 22, in which 26 people were killed, Indian armed forces launched Operation Sindoor and hit terror infrastructure in Pakistan.
During the interaction, the minister also spoke on other issues like the prowess of India’s digital payment systems, capex by state governments, climate change and AI adoption.
Sitharaman further said cross-border transactions are more efficient with Central Bank Digital Currency.
“Global currencies interoperability of systems and initiating into digital payments are all simultaneously happening. In India the extent to which common people have taken to it has amazed the world,” Sitharaman said.
Highlighting the scheme for special assistance to states to carry out capital expenditure, Sitharaman said all states now understand the importance of Capex generated from the Centre and their own resources.
