Sector liberalization needed to make India independent in arms and ammunition: Agarwal
Sector liberalization needed to make India independent in arms and ammunition: Agarwal
Vedanta Chairman Anil Agarwal on Saturday urged further liberalization of the defense sector and called for the nationalization of defense factories to make the country independent in terms of arms and ammunition.
There are 52 arms factories in the country producing arms and ammunition, but most of them are operating at 10% capacity, he said.
“We (India) can be the largest arms and ammunitions producer. If the arms factories are corporatized it will introduce a new way of thinking,” said Mr Agarwal while discussing the opening of a postgraduate executive program from practically London.
Vedanta hopes to start semiconductor production in India within the next two years, he said.
“Semiconductors are like the sutradhar (middleman) for every industry. In the next two years we should start producing semiconductors in India,” he replied to a question.
The company signed a memorandum of understanding with Foxconn in February this year to set up a joint venture to manufacture semiconductors in India.
Mr Agarwal indicated that there is a huge export of oil and defense products from India and remained optimistic about oil and gas production from India as it has a reserve of 300 billion barrels of oil reserves.
“We must produce at least 50% of energy security needs,” Mr Agarwal said.
He expressed optimism about the privatization of bauxite mines as India holds immense potential for aluminum production as demand will shift from steel in several applications.
“Bauxite mining will open in the next year or two,” he said.
