Chief of Defence Staff General NS Raja Subramani offered a five-year defence procurement roadmap on Friday. He asked the industry to build affordable, long-range missiles and advanced weapons. He said, “We will give a clear demand signal of over 5 to 7 years,” promising to work as true partners.
Chief of Defence Staff General NS Raja Subramani on Friday virtually offered a five-year long term shopping list to the domestic industry to meet the force’s demand as well as acknowledged policy gaps in futuristic technology procurement which he said are being addressed for accelerating the country’s strategic autonomy in an era of disruption.
General Subramani also put forth three asks from the industry on volume, scale, and speed and assured that the relationship between defence forces and the companies is now that of an “industry partner” and not as a vendor.
Speaking at “Annual Session and Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM) Champions Award 2026”, the CDS said, “We will give a clear demand signal of over 5 to 7 years and also technology capability signals which have already been done through prospective development programmes. In order to become better partners, come up with an innovative product that we are compelled to buy or create demand for that, instead of finger pointing over lack of business.”
Long Range Missiles
The General was speaking on one of the sessions on jointness, multi-domain integration and national deterrence, which was moderated by Baba Kalyani, industry veteran and founder president of SIDM.
The CDS stated that long range missiles are the need of the hour and that they are working with the industry to get home grown products. “We would like to have a missile that fires till 500 km to 600 km first and range can be increased further later,” he put forth the demand. But, he added a caveat - built it at a cost of less than ₹5 crore so that it’s affordable.
“If you come to us, we will ensure that the industry gets adequate orders. We require cruise missiles, we require multiple rocket launchers. Pinaka has a range of 70-80 kms, but today we want to have an extended version of 300-400 kms. Similarly increase the range of artillery gun ammunition because we cannot change the barrels,” he said, giving a development-cum-manufacturing roadmap to the gathering of representatives of industry, MSMEs and start-ups.
Solutions Needed
Referring to the air defence capabilities needs, he called on the industry to fulfill requirements of counter-drone systems, be it lasers or directed energy weapons. Come to us with a workable product, where you have a clear IP on it and we will work as partners and buy that equipment which is the need of the hour, he reaffirmed them.
On the adequate policy backing, he assured the industry that the government has taken cognisance of the absence of an explicit Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) defence procurement model and would come up with some solution.
“Today no provision exists, we are aware of it. We are working on ensuring that we have some provision that allows us to procure software and also looking at software as service issues. We are actively in discussions and hope we will be able to come up with something,” he said
On the procurement through IIDM category, having 60 per cent Indian content (IC) which an industry functionary described as disadvantageous to indigenous firms, and IP creation, “I do not have an easy answer for it but fact of the matter is, yes we have to incentivise Indian industries which are able to have their own IPs. One step forward which has been taken is that in case you have your own IP and manufactured also, it will be treated as buyer nominated equipment. It has been recently promulgated,” he noted.
The CDS also stated that they are also working towards simplification of technical specifications or Qualitative Requirements (QRs) in procurement to avoid inconveniences borne out of borrowed concepts like that of “NATO standards”. Indian procurement mandates NATO standard calibers for small arm weapons like rifles.
Earlier, SIDM president Arun Ramchandani in his opening remarks said there is also a need for jointness among the industry to rise to meet challenges thrown due to global insecurities.
Naval Chief Urges
Meanwhile, in another session moderated by Ramchandani, Chief of Naval Staff Chief Admiral Krishna Swaminathan urged the industry to invest more in R&D to come up with products that forces can own up. He vowed to give insight into capability requirements, clear visibility of problems faced, faster feedback and handholding to industry besides investing in the programmes. But, the Indian Navy chief urged the industry to plan for scale of production, ensure timelines are adhered to and the quality of products.