‘India-made bullet proof jackets exported to 18 countries’

India-made bulletproof jackets are being exported to 18 countries, Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik said on Wednesday but declined to name the nations citing “strategic requirements”.

Naik said industriallicences have been issued to 15 companies for manufacturing bulletproof jacketshaving production capacity in the country of over 10 lakh pieces per annum tomeet domestic and export requirements.

   

“Bulletproof jackets are also being exported to 18 countries.In view of the strategic requirement, names of the countries are notdisclosed,” Naik added.

Replyingto another question, Naik said that in order to export light combat aircraft toother friendly countries, the platform has been showcased by way of flyingdisplays at various foreign exhibitions by Hindustan Aeronautical Ltd.

Briefing about the platform has been given to various foreigndelegations who have visited HAL facilities.

“The company has respondedto Request for Information (RFI) from overseas. Formal Request for Quotation(RFQ) has not been received in order to process the proposal,” he added.

Respondingto another question, he said an amount of Rs 90,048 crore has been proposed forcapital acquisition (modernisation) in budget estimate (BE) 2020-21 underDefence Services Estimates, which is an increase of Rs 9,088.92 crore over BE2019-20.

The total amount allocated forcapital acquisition (modernisation) is 27.87 per cent of Defence ServicesEstimates.

In response to another question on China’s defencemodernisation, Naik said no official data relating to this was with theministry.

Naik,replying to another question, said the Army saw four cases of fratricide from2017 to 2019, while the Air Force recorded one such case in 2019.

The minister said the government has taken several stepstowards stress amelioration amongst troops.

This includes deployment of trained psychological counsellors, improvement in the quality of food and clothing, training in stress management, provision of recreational facilities, buddy system, leave concessions, approachability of seniors, facilities for movement of troops from border areas and establishing a grievance redressal mechanism at various levels.

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