The Narendra Modi government is expected to approve amendments in the Defence Acquisition Procedure soon to allow the Indian private sector into defence research and development (R&D) through special purpose vehicles in collaboration with the country’s defence public sector undertakings.

The amendments will allow the Indian private sector to acquire a stake in Defence R&D companies, which will be set up for development of major hardware platforms like drones, helicopters, aircrafts, and advanced submarines, according to a report in the Hindustan Times that cited senior officials aware of the development. 

This is a path-breaking development as till now, only government defence undertakings and laboratories were allowed in defence R&D with only minor items being exposed to the private sector.

The policy is in line with the announcement made in the budget that 25 per cent of defence R & D outlay would be spent on these SPVs with the private sector.

Given the global turmoil sparked off by the Ukraine war and the aggressive posturing by China, India has no choice but to make defence R & D competitive as the public sector alone cannot cater to growing demand for military hardware within the stipulated timelines.

The current thinking in the government is that India has no option but to develop and manufacture hardware platforms on its own as its major supplier Russia is focused on the Ukraine war which is expected to lead to a scarcity of spare parts for equipment used by the Indian armed forces, the Hindustan Times report adds.

The matter has acquired urgency as China has been able to develop armed high altitude long endurance drones like Wing Loong 10, which is powered by turbofan engines like state-of-the-art US armed drones.

India, on the other hand, is still relying on getting its medium altitude long endurance drones being upgraded by Israel.

According to a defence ministry statement, the Army Design Bureau on behalf of the Indian Army has also signed a MoU with the Drone Federation of India to collaboratively work towards promoting research, development, testing and manufacturing of drones, counter-drone and associated technologies that can assist the Indian Army in its operations.

The Indian Army in collaboration with the Drone Federation of India has launched the ‘Him Drone-a-thon’ programme on 8th August to develop path-breaking drone capabilities for meeting the requirements of frontline troops, according to a defence ministry statement issued on Monday.

As a start point, development in the following categories are included:-

*Logistics/ Load carrying Drone in High Altitude Areas.

*Autonomous Surveillance/ Search & Rescue Drone.

* Micro/ Nano Drones for Fighting in Built Up Areas.

Broad activities planned include interactions and ideation between users, development agencies, academia etc, seeking of industry responses, visits by development agencies to operational locations to understand the ground perspective and requirements, handholding of development agencies for internal development and on-ground trials and actual conduct  and evaluation of drone products.