The armed forces will completely ban the import of clothing required to sustain soldiers at extreme temperatures, if the Indian textile industry is able to innovate and manufacture them, says Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat.
In an event organized by the FICCI, Gen. Rawat said they are looking at the kind of clothing that can sustain soldiers in the kind of extreme cold climate (near northern borders of Ladakh) and in the hot, dry and humid climate in the deserts and the north-eastern regions where there is jungle and semi-mountainous terrain.
“As of now, a large amount of clothing for the armed forces is being imported but in the past one or two weeks, there has been a lot of innovation by the Indian industry as far as high altitude clothing is concerned,” he noted. “We have now started placing orders for such clothing. And if we find that this can take off and support us, we will not hesitate in putting the entire clothing or the entire “techno clothing” that we are using in the armed forces on the positive indigenisation list, which we were earlier calling the negative list for imports.”
Techno clothing is special clothing that is developed by incorporating new technology to make it usable in special circumstances and places such as extremely cold areas, biomedical equipment and aircraft etc.
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As part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat support, Gen. Rawat said this means they will completely ban the import of these items and make sure that the defence services have to depend only on the Indian industry. “As far as defence services are concerned, we have a huge sake in techno textiles. We are large users of textiles that use technology and we will continue to use them in years ahead.”
