India’s Defense Acquisition Council has given “in principle” approval to military equipment worth $11.6 billion, with approximately 98% of the procurements expected to come from Indian industry. The decision gives the government a green light to begin the procurement process, but it does not represent completed purchases. The Defense Ministry statement cited by Defense News described the domestic share as approximately 98%, making the industrial sourcing target the defining feature of the package.
The approvals cover the Army, Navy and Air Force and draw funding from an $86 billion annual defense budget approved earlier this year. The package links a broad modernization effort with a stated preference for domestic production. Its equipment list ranges from battlefield mobility and reconnaissance systems to naval sensors, propulsion research and electronic warfare equipment.
For the Army, the approved items include advanced light helicopters, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear reconnaissance vehicles, mine-laying vehicles, high-mobility vehicles and portable bridges. The listed systems include equipment for movement across difficult terrain, river crossing and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear reconnaissance. The approval does not specify quantities, delivery schedules or the companies expected to supply those systems.
The Navy’s portion includes new surveillance radars intended to replace aging systems at naval air stations. It also includes funding to design and develop marine gas turbines domestically. India already builds its own warships, but the account identifies propulsion systems as an area where the country still imports from overseas suppliers. Domestic turbine development would target a specific gap in the naval industrial base, although the approval concerns design and development funding rather than an announced operational turbine fleet.
The Air Force acquisitions include a ground-based multipurpose jammer for electronic warfare. The package also contains unspecified equipment intended to enhance the war-fighting capability of fighter jets, transport aircraft and helicopters. The available details do not identify those systems or describe their performance.
The sourcing target arrives as India seeks a larger role for private companies in defense production after years of heavy reliance on state-owned firms. The government says approximately 65% of India’s military hardware is now produced domestically. That figure describes the country’s overall military hardware, not the newly approved $11.6 billion package. A decade ago, the government says, roughly the same share, about two-thirds, was imported.
Private companies accounted for nearly a quarter of approximately $20 billion worth of defense equipment produced in fiscal year 2025-26, according to the account. The passage does not provide the private sector’s dollar value or identify how the output was divided among specific companies. It does identify a wide range of products now made by private defense firms, including radars, artillery guns, armored vehicles, missiles, ammunition, drones, small arms, aerostructures and naval systems.
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said earlier this year that India aims to raise the private sector’s share in defense production to 50%. The stated rationale is that private industry brings efficiency, research capabilities and a greater willingness to take risks. The 50% figure is a goal, while the nearly quarter share recorded for fiscal year 2025-26 is a measure of private-company participation in that period. The two figures describe different points in the government’s industrial policy and should not be treated as equivalent.
The domestic sourcing policy is intended to reduce India’s strategic vulnerability to foreign suppliers and help the military replenish equipment and weapons faster during hostilities. That intended benefit does not mean the new approvals eliminate foreign dependence. The account notes that some domestically produced systems, including drones, use imported components such as sensors and avionics. India also continues to rely heavily on foreign suppliers for several key military platforms, including fighter jets.
The approvals place domestic industry at the center of a military equipment package spanning all three services. Approximately 98% of the procurements are expected to be made from Indian industry, while the package includes both equipment acquisitions and domestic design-and-development work. The approval remains an “in principle” authorization to begin the procurement process, rather than a record of completed purchases.