Defence ministry sanctioned 148 tech projects in three years to boost indigenisation: Minister

Giving an impetus to indigenous industry, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has sanctioned as many as 148 new technology projects in the last three years, besides enhancing budgetary allocations and incentives for various schemes.

The actual expenditure of the Department of Defence Research and Development over the last three years has increased from Rs 20,585.78 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 22,927.50 crore in 2023-24 and Rs 24,696.94 crore in 2024-25, according to information shared by the Minister of State for Defence, Sanjay Seth in the Rajya Sabha on Monday. The budgetary estimates for 2025-26 have been pegged at Rs 26,816.82 crore.

A corpus of Rs 500 crore has been additionally sanctioned towards the Technology Development Fund (TDF), a defence ministry scheme to encourage participation of public and private industries, especially micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and startups.

“The projects sanctioned through TDF have also seen a lot of success with 26 technologies successfully developed and two of the project systems flown in space as part of the PSLV mission,” the minister said.

DRDO is coming up with a new policy to facilitate easier interaction with these emerging startups. This policy aims to streamline the process of engaging with startups and leveraging their innovative ideas for defence applications.

Further, 25 per cent defence R&D budget has been opened up for Industry, startups and academia based on the announcements made in the 2022-23 budget.

The minister said that a total of 70 projects — involving design and development and manufacturing of defence equipment or platforms — under various categories of the ‘Make in India’ procedure have been accorded Approval-in-Principal (AIP) in last three years.

Several world class R&D test facilities in 24 DRDO labs have now been opened for industries and necessary procedures have been formulated, which are available on the Defence Testing Portal, a platform for offering the ministry’s test infrastructure to defence industries in a more transparent manner.

DRDO has developed a pool of 2,000 industries to manufacture sub-systems, systems and equipment designed by it. The technology of DRDO developed systems are transferred to Indian Industries at zero fee.

DRDO has a policy and mechanism for collaborative directed research in developing critical and futuristic technologies for defence and security applications through a network of DRDO Industry Academia-Centre of Excellence (DIA-CoE). A total of 15 DIA-CoEs have been established, which are steering translational research activities in nearly 82 identified research verticals.

DRDO is also focusing on extramural research to develop essential knowledge and capabilities in the areas of critical defence technologies, establish network with researchers, develop highly skilled human resource and augment research infrastructures in Indian academic institutions and research centres to support the evolving defence R&D ecosystem in the country.