![\"India's](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-134365618,imgsize-907650,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/arjun-tank.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nOver the past decade, India’s domestic defence industry has steadily grown, and recently released numbers show the scope and size of this growth. India, still one of the largest defence importers, has steadily, over this time frame, reduced dependence on imported weapons, platforms, systems and sub-systems across the three services, as well as for exports. This shift is being driven by a combination of higher defence spending, changes in procurement policy, growing private-sector participation, and greater investment in research and development.<\/p>\n The scale of this transformation becomes clear when you look at production figures. Defence output touched a record Rs 1.78 lakh crore in 2025-26, up 15.6% from Rs 1.54 lakh crore the previous year, and more than double what it stood at just five years earlier in 2020-21, when the figure was Rs 84,643 crore. Compare that to Rs 43,746 crore back in 2013-14, and the trajectory of this growth becomes hard to miss. The Centre too has set an ambitious target of Rs 3 lakh crore in annual production and Rs 50,000 crore in exports by 2029.<\/p>\n The spending on defence has been growing as India’s stature and economy grows. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This growth has been underpinned by a defence budget that has more than tripled since 2013-14, rising from Rs 2.53 lakh crore to Rs 7.85 lakh crore in 2026-27. Capital expenditure, the portion that actually funds acquisition and development of new platforms, has climbed even more sharply and more than doubled from Rs 94,587.95 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 2.19 lakh crore in 2026-27. This subdivision of the overall defence budget matters because this is the money that directly finances military modernisation rather than routine running costs that are counted under the revenue head of the budget.<\/p>\n But if there’s one number that best captures how far India has come, it’s exports. From a modest Rs 686 crore in 2013-14, defence exports have grown more than 56 times, hitting a record Rs 38,424 crore in the last financial year. This was also a remarkable growth of 62.66% over the Rs 23,622 crore recorded the year before, with Indian-made defence products now reaching over 80 countries.<\/p>\n The increased participation of private firms is increasing both production and exports. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n What’s particularly striking is the increased share of private companies, which accounted for Rs 17,353 crore, or 45.16%, of these exports, nearly matching the Rs 21,071 crore, or 54.84%, contributed by the nation’s well-established defence public sector undertakings. This is still a considerable shift as the country’s defence sector was once dominated almost entirely by these government-run entities.The pattern holds in overall production too, with defence Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and public entities accounting for around 76% of total output, while the private sector’s share has climbed to its highest level yet at 24%, contributing roughly Rs 42,000 crore during the year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the current global environment, military capability to sustain long wars is the major currency of power. This is evidenced in all global conflicts,Military capability is a matter of men and material in the correct mix. Nations which have invested in building this capability indigenously will not only be victorious but will also be great powers. Self reliance in defence is an insurance against defeat and is a guarantor of victory. In this context the time has for India to invest more in spending on defence to achieve great power status.<\/p>\n Lt Gen PR Shankar (retd), Professor, Aerospace Dept IIT Madras and former DG Artillery In terms of war-fighting capability, this expanding industrial base means more than just impressive headline numbers. A larger domestic manufacturing capacity can potentially shorten the time needed to replenish ammunition, repair damaged equipment, and scale up production during a prolonged crisis, while also giving the armed forces greater control over upgrades and modifications without complete dependence on overseas suppliers. This has become a critical aspect as the extended conflicts in West Asia and Eastern Europe have shown the importance of a domestic defence industrial base and, in the age of sanctions, can help a nation stay in the fight without concerns of its weapon supplies being cut off.<\/p>\n The growing participation of private entities is helping in increasing production numbers and exports alike. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This push has reshaped procurement itself. The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has cleared Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for more than Rs 6 lakh crore worth of systems designed by DRDO and manufactured by Indian industry. Some of the largest such programmes involve combat aircraft and helicopters, including the second order for 97 Tejas Mk-1A fighters worth around Rs 62,000 crore and 156 LCH Prachand light combat helicopters valued at roughly Rs 62,700 crore, programmes designed not just to equip the forces but also to strengthen domestic defence manufacturing capability.These procurement reforms have evolved steadily over the years. The Defence Procurement Procedure of 2016 laid the groundwork for greater emphasis on domestic manufacturing, while the Defence Acquisition Procedure of 2020 strengthened indigenous procurement further and expanded opportunities for Indian companies across design, development and production. The Defence Procurement Manual 2025 has since sought to streamline nearly Rs 1 lakh crore worth of revenue procurement, while the still-under-consideration Defence Acquisition Procedure 2026 is looking to simplify the acquisition categories, provide support for indigenous design and improve indigenous content requirements.<\/p>\n The increase in R&D for defence is designed to keep both the forces and their equipment at the cutting edge of technology. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Startups and smaller innovators are deliberately being pulled into this ecosystem. The Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) scheme has engaged 676 startups, MSMEs and innovators, resulting in 551 design and development contracts by March 2026. This has been backed by an outlay of Rs 498.78 crore. The Acing Development of Innovative Technologies with iDEX (ADITI) scheme was separately approved with Rs 750 crore for 2023-24 through 2025-26 to support critical defence technology development, while the Technology Development Fund (TDF) offers grants of up to Rs 50 crore per project, with 80 projects worth Rs 334 crore under implementation as of June 2026, alongside an additional Rs 500 crore corpus sanctioned specifically for deep and emerging technologies.DRDO itself has significantly ramped up technology transfer to industry. Its Development cum Production Partner (DcPP) framework has now transferred technologies to 134 partner companies, with 2,180 technology transfer agreements signed and more than 2,780 intellectual property rights opened up for industry use by March 2026. The government’s Positive Indigenisation Lists, ten of them so far, five each under the Department of Military Affairs and the Department of Defence Production, have identified 5,521 items the armed forces are now expected to source domestically. A marketplace such as the Srijan Defence Equipment Empowerment Platform has connected over 41,000 vendors and 2.7 lakh products into this sourcing ecosystem, effectively serving as a digital repository for indigenous defence procurement.Defence R&D allocation increased from Rs 13,716.14 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 29,100.25 crore in 2026-27, a jump of more than 112%, and since 2022-23, a full 25% of the defence R&D budget has been thrown open to industry, startups and academia. Government testing infrastructure has been opened up too, with facilities across 24 DRDO laboratories now accessible through the Defence Testing Portal, letting manufacturers and startups use specialised government facilities to validate their own systems.<\/p>\n The results of all this are already visible in what’s actually being fielded. The Army has achieved around 91% self-sufficiency in ammunition, having indigenised 159 of the 175 variants in its inventory, a particularly critical achievement given how central ammunition stocks are to sustaining prolonged operations.These developments point to a defence sector that is now growing both vertically and horizontally, a sector built around design, research, testing, production, maintenance, upgrades and exports as a single connected ecosystem. These moves have implications for strategic autonomy, since a military overly reliant on imports remains vulnerable on spare parts, ammunition and technical support during a crisis, even as building domestic capacity doesn’t eliminate imports altogether or guarantee every component can be produced economically at home.<\/div>\n The Indian-developed Arjun tank has been in frontline service for almost two decades. (Image credit: Indian Army) Over the past decade, India’s domestic defence industry has steadily grown, and recently released numbers show the scope and size of this growth. India, still one of the largest defence importers, has steadily, over this time frame, reduced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-31"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","blogsy-small":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","blogsy-small-tall":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","blogsy-small-square":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","blogsy-small-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","blogsy-medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","blogsy-medium-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","blogsy-large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg","blogsy-wide":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"The Indian-developed Arjun tank has been in frontline service for almost two decades. (Image credit: Indian Army) Over the past decade, India’s domestic defence industry has steadily grown, and recently released numbers show the scope and size of this growth. India, still one of the largest defence importers, has steadily, over this time frame, reduced […]","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":2,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":7,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg",400,225,false],"medium":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg",300,169,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789897322_arjun-tank.jpg",150,84,false]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/author\/admin"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Big transformation in defence sector <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
![\"India\u2019s](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/photo\/imgsize-364926,msid-134365661\/indias-defence-the-big-numbers.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\n![\"India\u2019s](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/photo\/imgsize-327781,msid-134365730\/indias-defence-the-big-numbers.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\nDefence production a key strategic asset <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
![\"India\u2019s](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/photo\/imgsize-293291,msid-134365713\/indias-defence-the-big-numbers2.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\n![\"India\u2019s](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/photo\/imgsize-334183,msid-134365698\/indias-defence-the-big-numbers.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\nPrivate industry and innovation to pave the road ahead<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Indigenising inventories one step at a time <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"