New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said India has always played the role of a responsible nation exercising great restraint and it believes in resolving issues through dialogue, but anyone trying to take advantage of this restraint, will face ‘quality action’.
Addressing the National Quality Conclave here, the Defence Minister assured the nation that no limit will become an obstacle for the Government in protecting India’s sovereignty, a Defence Ministry statement said.
“We are fully prepared for such responsible responses in the future as well,” he said.
Rajnath said, “Operation Sindoor was successfully executed because our formidable and professionally-trained Armed Forces were equipped with high-quality equipment”.
He commended the precision with which the Armed Forces executed the operation without harming any innocent person and with minimum collateral damage, terming it as unimaginable and a matter of great pride for the nation.
“In Operation Sindoor, nine terror camps were destroyed in Pakistan and PoK, and a good number of terrorists were killed. It shows the crucial role ‘quality’ plays in securing national interests,” said the Minister.
Voicing the government’s emphasis on the empowerment of the defence production sector since 2014, based on government’s philosophy of Defence Sovereignty, Rajnath said, “Defence Sovereignty means that until a country is capable and self reliant in its defence needs, its independence cannot be considered complete.
“If we buy weapons and other defence equipment from abroad, we are outsourcing our security and leaving it at the mercy of someone else. Our government thought over it seriously and took a decisive step to achieve self-reliance. The expanding defence industrial ecosystem is providing an unprecedented strength to India”.
While he acknowledged the efforts being made towards quality improvement, Rajnath stressed on the need to focus on using tools such as artificial intelligence, internet of things, and machine learning for real-time quality monitoring in today’s technology-driven era. He also called for updating standards and testing protocols to align with evolving global technologies. We need to focus on time-bound quality assurance clearances so that unwanted delays do not take place, he said.
Rajnath asserted that quality assessment agencies should always keep an eye on their deficiencies and work on overcoming them through modernisation and development of testing infrastructure. Continuous gap analysis in the field of niche technology will be an essential step, he added.
Organised by the Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA) under the aegis of Department of Defence Production, the conclave underscored the need to transition from legacy QA models to predictive, data-driven, and automated systems.
