Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat Stresses The Need To Integrate Industry With The Defence Forces

Speaking at this morning’s opening session of the 3rd Defence-Indian Technical Textile Association (ITTA) meet being held at the Manekshaw Centre, New Delhi,  India’s Chief of Army Staff, General Bipin Rawat stressed the need for a synergistic ‘integration’ of India’s industry with its defence forces. The  chief idea being that close interaction will help either party better fulfill each other’s requirements while aiding the cause of indigenization. His remarks come at a time when India is looking to both widen and deepen its defence industrial base by involving the private sector and utilizing military procurement to help Indian industry climb the value chain, as it were. As such, here is a quick round-up of the essence of the points made by Gen. Rawat during his speech earlier today.

• In light of the huge budgetary spend on textile related requirements by the Indian military, the Defence-ITTA meet has an obvious importance.

• India’s technical textile industry is growing at a fair pace and is well placed to meet the Indian military’s growing textile requirements.

• Especially, becausein terms of quality, India’s technical textile industry can be world class, as evidenced by the fact that US Army combat boots are supplied by Indian vendors.

• The quality of textiles is of the utmost importance, given the role clothing plays in facilitating the longevity and comfort of troops deployed on the ground.

• The development of lightweight equipment that in turn require new generation textiles can greatly reduce the soldier’s combat load and make it easier for him to execute various tasks.

• Technical textiles have a major role to play in increasing combat stealth. Indeed, combat stealth technology may involve the substitution of metals by specialized fabric supplied by the technical textile industry.

• Subsidies are being offered to India’s North-Eastern states to aid the creation of technical textile units there. This can be of great use to India’s military forces which in turn will provide stable demand for these new units.

Gen. Rawat concluded his remarks by stressing the need to not let the proceedings of such seminars get ‘consigned to files’. He emphasized the need for the Indian military and Indian industry to continue to ‘engage’ each other and ‘progress’.

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