The Reliance Group chairman, Anil Ambani, will soon be outlining his group’s plans to get into the defence equipment manufacturing sector at a chief executive’s forum meet, Aero India. According to some officials, this was led by the Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar,  in Bangalore next week. The government’s initiative in the shape of ‘Make in India’ provides a perfect defence industrial base in the country. Ambani said that the Reliance Group is committed to do its best to this initiative. He also said that he will do anything to get world class technologies to India and create skill sets within the country to deliver top end end platforms for Armed forces. This is cut down on import of defence product and this creates high skill jobs by opening new sectors for private investment. According to a source, the chairman will give further details about this at the Aero Show.

The defence minister will be having a meeting that will consist of 17 – 18 chief executives on Feb 18. This will be the inaugural day of the show. The plans will be unveiled at the meeting. The Reliance Infrastructure also informed that it has now formed three wholly own subsidiaries – Reliance Defence Systems, Reliance Defence Technologies and the Reliance Defence Aerospace. The group is concentrating more on naval platform, air mobility, avionics and network centric warfare. It is also being said that the former Indian chief of Lockheed Martin, Rajesh Dhingr, will lead this initiative programme.

In fact, frequent discussions are being held with potential foreign collaborators for tie-ups. Some of the key acquisitions are also not being ruled out in the inorganic space. This announcement also had significant impact on the company’s stocks. It is being traded at more than 3.5 percent higher at around Rs.440. ‘Make in India’ programme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, defence ministry officials explained that the government wanted to encourage domestic production of equipment as 60 percent of the capital requirement is met by imports. The allocation for defence sector in the national budget was $37.3 billion and it has been estimated that an investment of over $4 billion will be required in the next seven-eight years from domestic and overseas sources.