Raising the FDI limit by itself may not enthuse the foreign investors as per the expectations. To make the defence sector more attractive for foreign investment, a whole lot of other related issues will have to be addressed by the government.

It would be helpful if MoD issues a formal order addressing the concerns expressed by various stakeholders about certain aspects of the negative list, especially its impact on projects that involve foreign OEMs and the purpose of bifurcating the capital budget.

The negative list of embargoed defence items is one more step towards creating a strong domestic arms industry and making India self-reliant in defence production.

Considering the impending financial crunch due to the Covid-19 pandemic and uncertainty about allocations in the coming years, it is unlikely that the MoD will be able to launch many new procurement programmes under the new DPP any time soon.

Draft DPP 2020 needs to cut out obfuscation, repetitions, and bring out core issues for the consideration of the decision-makers in a concise and clear manner.