India Opens Missile Production To Private Firms As Arms Exports Hit ₹38,424 Crore
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced transfer of state-developed missile technology to industry, and said India will act against terrorism while seeking no country's territory
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| File Photo Via: @rajnathsingh on X |
The Defence Minister told a defence conclave in New Delhi that qualifying Indian firms would be able to produce the systems, a change he said would improve the armed forces' preparedness and speed up deliveries. The Defence Research and Development Organisation, which has until now both designed and overseen the production of such systems through state-owned firms, would increasingly concentrate on research while industry took on a larger share of manufacturing.
The announcement came alongside figures showing a sharp rise in India's arms exports. Sales reached ₹38,424 crore in the 2025-26 financial year, Singh said, against ₹686 crore in 2013-14, and now go to more than 100 countries. The government met a ₹30,000 crore export target last year and has set a new one of ₹50,000 crore by 2029.
India has historically been among the world's largest arms importers, and successive governments have tried to build domestic capacity. Singh said growing demand abroad for Indian missiles, radars, ammunition and platforms reflected confidence in the country's technology and delivery, and that "Made in India" was becoming a mark of trust rather than simply a manufacturing label.
The defence budget has risen to ₹7.85 lakh crore for 2026-27, he said, from about ₹2.53 lakh crore in 2013-14. Around 75% of the capital acquisition budget, ₹1.39 lakh crore, is reserved for purchases from Indian suppliers.
On security policy, Singh said India sought no other country's territory but would not treat peace as weakness. "We seek global stability, but not at the cost of our strategic autonomy," he said. "We are firmly committed to safeguarding our security and strategic autonomy when threatened."
He said there could be no dialogue with any country that promotes terrorism against India, and that states using terrorism as an instrument of policy, or sheltering those who do, must be reminded that it cannot serve as a strategic asset. As long as a neighbouring country continued to support terrorism, he said, India remained entitled to take all necessary measures against it. He was referring to remarks made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Singh did not name the country.
He also argued that national security was not the responsibility of the armed forces alone, urging citizens to place the national interest above divisions of religion, caste, language and region.
Much of the address set out the government's case for self-reliance in defence. Singh said 509 items of equipment and weapon systems have been placed on five lists reserved for domestic production, and that state defence firms have issued six further lists covering 5,417 components, of which about 3,300 have been indigenised. Under a portal called SRIJAN, roughly 33,000 imported items have been identified for substitution, and about 15,700 replaced with Indian-made equivalents.
He said all 16 state-owned defence firms are now operating without losses, and that the corporatisation of the ordnance factories had improved output and accountability. India's defence supply base now includes more than 16,000 small and medium enterprises alongside startups and universities. Industrial corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have attracted investment proposals worth about ₹70,000 crore, of which around ₹10,000 crore has been invested.
Through iDEX, a scheme that funds defence startups, 676 firms and innovators had been engaged and 551 contracts signed as of March 2026, with procurement worth more than ₹2,400 crore approved from startups and small firms.
Singh said the character of war was changing, extending into cyber, space, electronic and information domains, and involving artificial intelligence, drones, autonomous systems, quantum technology and hypersonics. India, he said, needed capabilities across all of them, and was working to reduce vulnerabilities in semiconductors, critical minerals and energy supply.
He described India as a civilisational power whose rise rested on inclusive development rather than confrontation, and pointed to its role in the developing world, including the supply of more than 30 crore Covid-19 vaccine doses to over 100 countries under the Vaccine Maitri programme.