NEW DELHI: Indicating willingness to change norms of blacklisting firms with tainted records, which has hurt the military procurement most, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said punishing culprits is more important than imposing regulations.
Participating in a panel discussion on “Make in India” at ET Global Business summit, Mr Parrikar said instead of putting in more regulations, mechanism was needed to punish violators quickly.
“I believe that the less the government is in any manufacturing sector, the faster it will progress,” he said, adding that for defence exports, most restrictions were being removed and it would be made even more easier in 2016.
The blacklisting in the past, especially during the tenure of A K Antony as Defence Minister had hit the procurement process badly with many of the critical acquisition coming to standstill. Mr Parrikar had been advocating against blacklisting the firms in a haste.
The Defence Minister also came down heavily on stringent laws relating to the environment saying that the strict regime was hampering many projects.
“Environment laws were tightened so much in the past 10 years that today doing anything is impossible,” he said. The Defence Minister also sounded the precautionary note while unleashing the liberal norms in the defence sector.
“The defence sector is like a ‘doberman’, when you unleash it, you have to be very careful that it does not bite anyone,” he said.
Listing the step taken by his ministry to facilitate Make in India, Mr Parrikar said, “We have done a lot of ground preparation, results will be seen in coming years.”
“I fight for the ease of doing business. We have to maintain transparency but procedure should not become supreme,” he said. (AGENCIES)
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