Defence R&D Boost: How India's New Policies Are Fueling Military Innovation

To start off, he noted DRDO has implemented the Development cum Production Partner (DcPP) model to identify potential manufacturing agencies through a competitive process involving both public and private sector and transfer the manufacturing technology to meet production requirements.

The MoS apprised the Upper House that DRDO has developed a pool of 2,000 industries to manufacture sub-systems, systems and equipment.

The technology of DRDO developed systems are transferred to Indian Industries at zero ToT fee for Development cum Production Partner (DcPP)/ Production Agency (PA)/ Development Partner (DP). Consultancy Services of DRDO Scientists to industry is made available, the minister said in his written reply.

Technology Development Fund (TDF) scheme is a program of defence ministry, executed by DRDO to encourage participation of public/ private industries especially Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)/ Start-ups and to promote self-reliance in Defence technology as part of Make-in-India initiative.

The projects sanctioned through TDF have also seen a lot of successes with 26 technologies successfully developed and two of the project systems flown in Space as part of PSLV mission.

In line with the government mandate, a corpus of Rs 500 crore has been additionally sanctioned towards TDF Scheme with focus towards Deep-Tech and cutting-edge technologies.

In his written reply, Seth said DRDO is coming up with a new policy to facilitate easier interaction with these emerging Start-ups. This policy aims to streamline the process of engaging with start-ups and leveraging their innovative ideas for defence applications.

Four Dare to Dream contests have been successfully conducted. The contest is aimed at creation of an ecosystem to foster innovation and technology development in Defence and Aerospace by engaging Start-ups and individual innovators and engaging them to carry out R&D development which has good potential for future adoption for Indian Defence and aerospace needs.

Several world class R&D test facilities in DRDO Labs have now been opened for industries and necessary SOP has been formulated. Test facilities of 24 DRDO labs have been uploaded on the Defence Testing Portal (DTP), a platform of MoD for offering the Ministry's test infrastructure to Defence industries in a more transparent manner.

Industry Interaction Groups (IIGs) have been established in labs to facilitate industries, he continued.

25% of Defence R&D Budget has been opened up for industry, start-ups and academia based on Budget 2022-23 announcements.

"DRDO has 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," the written reply read.

DRDO is supporting Uttar Pradesh Industrial Corridor and Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor by collaborating with Industries as knowledge partner. The corridors have been established to achieve 'Aatmanirbharta' and to realise the goal of 'Make in India'.

DRDO has sanctioned a total of 148 new R&D Projects in the last 3 years.

Details of Budget Estimates (BE), Revised Estimates (RE) and actual allocations in respect of the Department of Defence R&D along with Actual Expenditure for the last three years along with allocations at Budget Estimates for the year 2025-26 are as under:

"The Government promotes public and private sector partnerships in defence industries by various initiatives such as TDF, Dare to Dream, ToT, DcPP and iDEX etc," the Minister's reply concluded.

- ANI