New Delhi: A record number of over 880 exhibitors, both domestic and foreign companies, have registered to participate in the DefExpo 2020 to be held in Lucknow in the first week of February, making it the largest ever so far.
This information was given by India’s defence ministry officials to Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh during a review meeting held today, when he also launched the mobile application for the biennial show.
The exhibition space booked by exhibitors has also gone up by 52 per cent to nearly 41,000 square metres compared to the last edition at Chennai in 2018. Foreign delegations at the level of Defence Minister and Service Chief are confirmed from 18 countries. Several agreements are expected to be signed during the show.
Rajnath Singh launched the mobile app, which will be available on Apple App Store and Android Play Store. The main features of the app are ‘inform, engage and feedback’. It provides detailed information about the day-to-day events; participating exhibitors; Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs), guest speakers of seminars and webinars; publications such as electronic brochures and e-books; maps and directions of the venues and city weather.
The app has been developed by Department of Defence Production at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) with the aim to engage with the visitors as well as exhibitors. Business-to-business exhibitor connect; exhibitor chat; ticket booking; accommodation in tented city; push notifications and social media are some of its salient features. Feedback mechanism in the app is another essential feature to further improve operations during the event.
NOTE: DefExpo 2020 is scheduled between Feb. 5-8 in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh, and the theme of the expo is ‘India: The Emerging Defence Manufacturing Hub‘. Detailed information is available at http://www.defexpo.gov.in.
Defence Dashboard
Rajnath Singh also launched a dashboard of Department of Defence (DoD) at the Ministry of Defence. The internal Dashboard will be used for effective monitoring of budget expenditure, redressal of public grievances and clearance of public projects on defence land.
During the review of the dashboard, Rajnath Singh directed senior officials of the ministry to devise mechanisms so that public grievances may be disposed off on priority.
Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar explained the features and the main objectives of the dashboard and informed that through this initiative, the DoD will be able to better monitor major initiatives of the department in a more effective way.
