New Delhi: The federal cabinet yesterday approved a proposal to raise the foreign direct investment (FDI) ceiling in defence sector to 49 percent from the present 26 percent.
The move is designed to boost domestic defence industry of the country that imports up to 70 percent of its military requirements.
Budget 2014-15 presented to parliament last month hiked the composite cap of foreign investment to 49 percent to be approved through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) route and with control of the enterprise to be in Indian hands.
Currently, the government permits 26 percent FDI in defence manufacturing.
“India today is the largest buyer of defence equipment in the world. Our domestic manufacturing capabilities are still at a nascent stage,” Finance Minitsre Arun Jaitley had said presenting his maiden budget.
“We are buying a substantial part of our defence requirements directly from foreign players, companies controlled by foreign governments and foreign private parties are supplying our defence requirements to us at a considerable outflow of foreign exchange,” he had added.
New Delhi: State-run explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has lost output of 1,000 crude oil barrels and 0.11 million standard cubic metres of gas per day owing to a gas leak at its Mumbai High offshore fields, the government said yesterday.
“Water is being sprayed continuously at the leakage point. Gas leakage has subdued considerably and further efforts to completely stop the gas leakage are underway,” Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
“However, due to closure of well, loss of oil and gas production has been estimated to the tune of 1,000 barrels oil per day and 0.11mmscmd respectively,” he added. Gas leakage was reported on July 19 from the well NS-BX in Mumbai High.
The minister said ONGC has constituted a committee to probe the causes of the gas leakage.
While operations at the well have been stopped for safety reasons and personnel evacuated to nearby installations, ONGC has called in international experts to stop the leak.
Agencies
