Saturday, December 31 2005 16:00 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: A technology fund is likely to be set up for promoting indigenous design and development in the defiance sector, Defence minister Pranab Mukherjee said today (Dec 31, 2005).

"We are planning for a technology fund to support the private sector in creating design and development capacity to reduce import dependence on defence technologies," Mukherjee told a BNCCI seminar on 'Doing business with Defence'.

"The creation of the fund is in the conceptual stage and the size and other details are yet to be finalized," Mukherjee said when asked about details of the fund.

Mukherjee also said that the private sector had failed to come up to the desired level of participation in production of defence capacities.

"The Kelkar Committee which was set up to identify the bottlenecks faced by the private sector had submitted the first part of the report. We have accepted most of its recommendations and some of it is in the process of implementation," Mukherjee said.

Out of 27 licenses and letters of intent issued for producing defence equipment which including Tatas and L&T hardly anything had fructified.

Mukherjee said the SME sector could play a major role but to boost it there was need for change in some of the labour laws and for this labour unions needed to take a soft stand.

The Defence sector was also making both capital and recurring procurements transparent, he said.