India Making Strides Towards Self-Reliance in Defence Production

Away from the media blitzkrieg, a quiet transformation is taking place in the Indian defence manufacturing sector. Picking up lessons from Operation Sindoor, India is looking for increased domestic production of loitering munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles, counter-air defence system, AI-guided arms, missiles and even stealth fighter jet under its pursuit of self-reliance, or Atmanirbhar Bharat.

This approach will be propelled by higher private participation in the sector and Adani Defence & Aerospace is leading the pack with a slew of operational facilities in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Gwalior and, most recently, Kanpur. “Operation Sindoor has revised the rulebook of future wars. The conflict paradigm will bring into picture a bigger role for Kamikaze drones, counter air-defence and missiles,” says Ashish Rajvanshi, CEO of Adani Defence.

And this is where the Adani defence production wing has laid its focus. Built on the platform of DRDO technology, the group has charted an impressive line-up for its defence production inventory. The group started working on delivering UAV drones in 2019 and on counter drones in 2021. It is now working on supersonic surface-to-air missiles in line with the revised focus.

The Kanpur facility has already started producing ammunition of various calibres for its small arms made in its Gwalior unit. Spread over 500 acre of land, the Kanpur facility will be split into two producing arms – one for missiles and the other for small, medium & large caliber ammunition for a battery of guns.

The investment figures are mind-numbing. In the Kanpur unit itself, the group has seeded a capital of over ₹3,000 crore, which is expected to go up to ₹7,000 crore in near future. The Gwalior unit, which is already producing state-of-the-art small firearms for Special Forces and gun propellant power (thrust and velocity), was set up with an investment of around ₹3,500 crore.

Incidentally, Adani Defence supplied UAV Laser Precision Guided Munition and Arka man-portable air-defence system to Indian Armed Forces during Operation Sindoor to counter low-flying objects or drones, according to CEO Rajvanshi.

Rajvanshi admits that the biggest impediment in India’s hunt for an indigenous Fifth Gen Fighter Jet is a dependable engine. “While India has credible capabilities in producing UAVs, payloads and drones indigenously, we are yet to develop our own stealth fighter jet,” he says. The current focus nevertheless is on electronic warfare and a counter drone system (Sudarshan Chakra) that can act as jammer or shooter.

For the uninitiated, defence production in India has severe limitations even for a large business conglomerate. For one, the R&D costs are incredibly high and unpredictable. Two, even when you have created products of tech-specific standards, the market is limited to either the country’s own defence establishment or to that of friendly countries. Third, the operational costs, which include safety, security and secrecy, are prohibitively high.