Innovations for Defence Excellence project

Relevance: mains: G.S paper III: Science and technology

Why in news?

• Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), approves several procurement proposals to boost ‘Make in India.’

Important highlights of the following projects were approved by DAC:

• Procurement of equipment worth over Rs 5,100 crore from indigenous sources. These include sophisticated Electronic Warfare Systems for the Army designed by DRDO and manufactured locally by the Indian industry.
• Prototype testing of trawl assemblies designed by DRDO for T-72 and T-90 tanks providing an important indigenous de-mining capability to the Army.
• Shortlisting of Indian Strategic Partners (SP) and the potential Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) that would collaborate with SPs to construct six conventional submarines in India under the P-75 (India) Project.
• Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited and Larsen and Toubro (L&T) will be Indian strategic partners
• This programme is being progressed under the ‘Strategic Partnership Model’, promulgated in 2017 to give a major boost to ‘Make in India’ in Defence Sector.
• Inclusion of Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) in Defence Procurement Procedure. This would provide avenues in capital procurement for the Armed Forces to startups and innovators working for iDEX and provide huge fillip to their budding efforts.

Background

Defence innovation hubs

The Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) framework under the Defence Ministry is envisaging setting up of independent Defence Innovation Hubs (DI Hs) where innovators can get information about needs and feedback from the Armed Services directly and create solutions for India’s major defence platforms.  Defence Innovation Hubs are aimed at attracting more innovators to work for the defence sector in India.

Guidelines for Setting up of Defence Innovation Hubs

The Framework to Fund Defence Innovation Hubs under iDEX has been approved by the Board of Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO).

The framework prescribes the following minimum criterion for setting up Defence Innovation Hubs: Any Central Government recognized Incubator including but not limited to: Department of Science and Technology (DST) recognized Incubators.

Any other incubator recognized or funded through any Central government scheme. The incubator located in districts mentioned in the list of SME clusters hosted by the Ministry of MSME in collaboration with UNIDO.

Incubator / Hub promoted by local industry associations. The Defence Innovation Organisation set up under iDEX has announced setting up of two DIHs in Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore) and Maharashtra (Nashik).

Defence Innovation Organisation

Defence Innovation Organisation is a not for profit company under section 8 of the Companies Act. The Defence Innovation Organisation is funded by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). The headquarters of the Defence Innovation Organisation is located at Bengaluru.

Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) scheme

Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) scheme aims to create an ecosystem to foster innovation and technology development in Defence and Aerospace by engaging Industries including MSMEs, Startups, Individual Innovators, R&D institutes and Academia and provide them grants/funding and other support to carry out R&D which has good potential for future adoption for Indian defence and aerospace needs. The Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) functions as the executive arm of the Defence Innovation Organisation.