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Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday approved a proposal for bringing in industry-friendly reforms related to Authority Holding Sealed Particulars (AHSP).

The AHSP is the authority which is responsible for generating, maintaining, updating or declaring obsolete the entire history and technical information of defence products.

According to the Ministry of Defence, so far, the Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA) was the AHSP for majority of defence items designed, developed and manufactured by various DPSUs and private industries.

Under the existing procedure, certain bottlenecks were experienced by the industry to bring timely improvements in their products and technologies in line with changing times. Therefore, the ministry has decided now to liberalise the AHSP procedures and make them industry-friendly, said a Defence Ministry official.

The ministry said that the Indian defence companies, which have developed products, systems, subsystems, and components on their own indigenous capabilities (except critical stores), will now be allowed to own and account for their final designs and specification as AHSP.

In case of any change in the sealed particulars, a simplified mechanism representing all the concerned stakeholders, including the industry, will take a decision. The DGQA will notify the detailed procedure in this regard within two months.