With the Left safely out of the way after the trust vote, the Government is set to push key deals in the defence sector — including reforms in the private defence manufacturing industry and a set of missile procurements from Israel.

One of the first things the Government will ensure is that Indian companies are granted the Raksha Udyog Ratna (RUR) status, which will allow them to act as system integrators and manufacture complete weapon systems for the armed forces.

The RUR policy, initiated in 2006 to bring private sector companies at par with Defence PSUs, has been stuck for more than two years due to objections raised by the Left parties. This has created major problems as the country is expecting an inflow of over $10 billion in the defence sector over the next five years due to the offset policy.

On several occasions, Union Defence Minister A K Antony himself admitted that the present public sector setup was not adequate to absorb the offsets. The private sector needs to step in and assume a bigger role, he had said. The current defence procurement policy mandates a 30 per cent direct offsets for all defence deals worth over Rs 300 crores.

Although a list of 13 companies, which are to be granted the RUR status were shortlisted by an expert committee last June, the policy has been stuck for over a year even after two meetings were initiated on behest of the Left between PSU unions and the MoD.

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