NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India must become more self-reliant, after the pandemic disrupted supply chains and showed the risks of depending on exports for essential risks, the finance minister said on Wednesday.

       "Even as we want to be linked with the global value chains, we have to understand and take cognizance of the risks it has posed us," Nirmala Sitharaman said. She said India had to import protective equipment and testing kits during the initial phase of the pandemic.

       She said India will need to build manufacturing centers at scale to reduce dependency in the future.

       (Reporting by Manoj Kumar)

       (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)