Defence Department is a very important section as far as the security of the country is concerned. Under the Department of Defence there are 39 ordnance factories and 9 PSUs like HAL, Bharat Electronics, Hindustan Shipyard Ltd. etc. Arms, ammunitions,tanks, vehicles, aircrafts, radar and many other requirement of the defence services are produced in these ordnance factories and PSUs.  According to the policy adopted immediately after Independence, manufacture / production of the defence items were completely under the government due to its highly security concerns.

As part of the neo-liberalisation  policy of the government, it is proposing to privatise many of these crucial work at present being done by the department, ordnance factories and PSUs. There is much pressure from the MNCs and corporates to do so. Accordingly the government of India has adopted a Defence Production Policy under which the government is proposing larger involvement of the Indian private sector in design, development and manufacture of the defence equipments.

No doubt, this has got serious concern on the security of the country, especially in the present context when terrorists and extremists have become a threat to the country. The trade unions of the defence workers are fully aware of the same and have decided to oppose the implementation of privatisation policy in the defence sector. All the three major federations, All India Defence Employees Federation (AIDEF), Indian National Defence Workers Federation (INDWF) and Bharathiya Pratiraksha Mazdoor Sangh (BPMS) representing the 4 lakh defence civilian workers have joined together to fight against this privatisation move of the government. The National Convention against privatisation of Defence Production held at New Delhi on 3rd December, participated by more than 500 delegates have strongly opposed the privatisation move as well as increased FDI in defence sector and has decided to organise agitational programmes including strike. The Convention has also decided to participate in the 28th February general strike called by the Central Trade Unions.