Chennai, Oct 16: Defence Ministry would conduct an internal inquiry into the recent issue of the army returning defective shells produced in ordinance factories, Minister of State for Defence O Rajagopal said today. "But we will not take at face value the argument that the production at our ordinance factories are of poor quality," he told reporters on the sidelines of a CII meet on defence-industry partnership here. It was quite natural that a few products might be defective in a mass production, he said.

Ruling out constituting a committee to probe the issue, he said it would be an internal inquiry.
The ministry was keen to explore opportunities for boosting India's defence exports adding that the idea was to have at least Rs 1000 crore of exports per year.
He said many Asian countries were interested in procuring quality defence equipment from India. There was good market for the advanced light helicopters and tanks being produced in India.
Rajagopal said the Defence Ministry was going ahead with the production of Arjun tanks. Bureau Report