‘Pvt sector, startups key to India’s defence R&D push’
New Delhi: Against the backdrop of increasing defence production and expenditure, amid cross-border tensions and turmoil in global geopolitics, the Union government informed Parliament on Monday that a multi-pronged strategy has been adopted to deepen industry participation, promote innovation, and further accelerate India’s journey towards self-reliance in defence technologies.
Minister of State for Defence Sanjay Seth, in a written reply to a question by Rajya Sabha MP S Selvaganabathy, said the government has drawn up a comprehensive framework of policy measures and financial commitments to substantially strengthen research and development in defence manufacturing. Central to this endeavour is the Development-cum-Production Partner model of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which invites participation by both public and private sector entities in the manufacture of defence systems through competitive selection. In this model, manufacturing technologies developed by DRDO are transferred to the selected partners for meeting production requirements, thus offering the twin advantages of speedy induction while stimulating indigenisation and expanding domestic industrial capability.
The minister said the technology transfer to Indian industry has been significantly liberalised and the DRDO has created a pool of nearly 2,000 industries for manufacturing subsystems, systems, and equipment developed in its laboratories. The technologies are being transferred at zero transfer-of-technology fee to development and production partners, while consultancy services of DRDO scientists are also being extended to enable smoother absorption of indigenous technologies. A policy permitting free access to DRDO patents by Indian industries has also been implemented to further encourage innovation-led manufacturing.
Private sector and startups participation has been given a big fillip through the Technology Development Fund scheme of the ministry, which is executed by the DRDO. Seth apprised the House that under this scheme, already 26 technologies have been developed and two project systems have flown in space in PSLV missions. With the intent of providing further impetus to the scheme, an additional corpus of Rs 500 crores has been sanctioned with focused emphasis on deep-tech and state-of-the-art technologies.
A new Start-up Policy is in the process of being rolled out by DRDO to ease the procedures for interaction with start-ups engaged in frontier defence technologies. This is being complemented by the scheme ‘Dare to Dream’, under which four national-level innovation contests have already been conducted to motivate start-ups as well as individual innovators to undertake research with strong future potential for applications in defence and aerospace.
The Defence ministry has opened several world-class testing facilities housed in DRDO laboratories for industrial use. Test facilities across 24 DRDO labs are now available on the Defence Testing Portal digital platform, enabling the defence industries to access the ministry’s testing infrastructure transparently. Industry Interaction Groups have also been established across DRDO laboratories to ensure continuous institutional engagement with manufacturers and technology developers.
The reply highlighted that one of the major policy changes that was brought about by the Union Budget 2022–23 was to open 25 per cent of the defence R&D budget for industry, startups and academic institutions.
The collaborative ecosystem has further expanded by establishing DRDO–Industry–Academia Centres of Excellence. Fifteen such centres have been established to drive translational research across approximately 82 identified technology verticals spanning future defence and security applications. In tandem, as the knowledge partner, DRDO is supporting the Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridors.
Defence innovation is also being anchored through the Innovations for Defence Excellence initiative launched in 2018.
These efforts are complemented by the ‘Make’ procedure under the Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020, which focuses on indigenous design, development and manufacturing of defence platforms. In the past three years, up to March 2025, as many as 70 projects under various ‘Make’ categories have received Approval-in-Principal. On the project front, the DRDO has sanctioned 148 new research and development projects over the last three years.
Budgetary data placed before Parliament reflects a consistent rise in support for defence R&D, with allocations rising from Rs 21,330.20 crore in 2022–23 to Rs 23,263.89 crore in 2023–24 and Rs 23,855.61 crore in 2024–25. Revised estimates have remained higher than initial allocations, and actual expenditure has tracked closely sanctioned amounts.
For 2025–26, the Budget Estimates have been pegged at Rs 26,816.82 crore, underlining the government’s sustained focus on domestic defence innovation.
