New Delhi (TDI): India will launch a $234 million incentive program for civil and military drone makers to reduce their reliance on imported components and counter rival Pakistan’s program built on support from China and Turkiye, Reuters reported.
The military confrontation between India and Pakistan came as the former blamed Islamabad for the Pahalgam attack. On the night of May 6-7, New Delhi launched a series of air strikes on Pakistan, resulting in civilian casualties. Both sides then exchanged missiles, which stretched over the week. It took American intervention for both sides to finally drop their guns.
The nuclear-armed neighbours are now locked in a drones arms race. New Delhi will launch a 20 billion Indian rupees ($234m) program for three years that will cover the manufacture of drones, components, software, counter-drone systems, and services.
Details of the program have not been previously reported and its planned expenditure is higher than the modest 1.2bn Indian rupees production-linked incentive scheme New Delhi launched in 2021 to promote drone start-ups, which have struggled to raise capital and invest in research.
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Reuters previously reported that India plans to invest heavily in local industry and could spend as much as $470m on unmanned aerial vehicles over the next 12 to 24 months, in what government and military officers said would be a staggered approach.
In the past, India has mainly imported military drones from its third-largest arms supplier, Israel, but in recent years its nascent drone industry has scaled up its cost-effective offerings, including for the military, although reliance on China continues for certain components such as motors, sensors and imaging systems.
Through the incentives, India is aiming to have at least 40 per cent of key drone components made in the country by the end of fiscal year 2028 (April-March).
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“During (the India-Pakistan) conflict there was quite a lot of use of drones, loitering munitions and kamikaze drones on both sides,” Indian Defense Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh said last week.
“The lesson that we’ve learned is that we need to double down on our indigenization efforts to ensure that we build a large, effective, military drone manufacturing ecosystem.”
Farkhund Yousafzai is an Associate Editor at The Diplomatic Insight.
