India’s missile tech transfer to firms signals defence self-reliance on track

India is turning to its private industry to help produce missiles, hoping a wider manufacturing base can cut its import dependence while boosting its defence export capacity and deterrence against Pakistan and China.
But India’s push towards self-reliance in defence manufacturing is still a distant goal, according to analysts, citing its missile supply chain’s dependence on imported components, while private firms have yet to prove that they can soon build complex weapons.
On Tuesday, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approved the transfer of technologies developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the research and development wing of the country’s Ministry of Defence, for all conventional missile systems to Indian defence companies for domestic production.
The move is part of New Delhi’s Aatmanirbharta (self-reliance) campaign aimed at strengthening its defence manufacturing sector and reducing its dependence on overseas suppliers.
Gaurav Kumar, a researcher at the United Service Institution of India, a defence think tank, said the national objective would take many years to achieve, citing the complexity of missile production.
“A missile is one of the hardest things to build. It packs propulsion, electronics and software into a small tube, and everything has to work perfectly. India’s private firms have the money and the factories, but they’ve never built a full missile on their own,” Kumar said.
Walter Ladwig, a senior international-relations lecturer at King’s College London, said a key challenge was how quickly private firms could build “sophisticated missiles reliably and at scale” after absorbing the technological transfer.
“Transferring a design is one thing, establishing qualified production lines, suppliers and quality control is another, and some imported components will probably remain in the supply chain,” he said.

However, if private firms could progress from making basic components for public-sector producers to incorporating more advanced designs, it would signal a milestone in India’s defence-industrial model, Ladwig said.
Rahul Wankhede, a research analyst at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, noted that firms such as Tata Advanced Systems were already supplying parts for the Akash and MRSAM air defence systems, and the Pinaka artillery weapon system. With time, these firms could develop the capability for “certified, repeatable, high-volume production”, he added.
If India’s private sector could bridge gaps in areas such as advanced propulsion technologies, semiconductors and other electronics components, it would show DRDO’s technological transfer is a successful launchpad towards the objective, according to Wankhede.
Kumar said that Indian companies could eventually move beyond conventional missile production towards manufacturing long-range and nuclear-capable missiles such as the Agni, citing the likes of Larsen & Toubro, Bharat Forge, Tata Advanced Systems and Adani Defence & Aerospace as potential beneficiaries.
However, Kumar called on the Indian government to commit to regular and large orders from the private sector to achieve its self-reliance objective.
“Without that, the new production lines sit idle. So for now, India still leans on the state firm Bharat Dynamics and on imports. Give it five to 10 years of steady orders, and private industry can seriously cut the import bill,” Kumar said.
Rahul Rawat, a researcher at the Observer Research Foundation think tank’s Strategic Studies Programme, said that while India’s private defence sector had performed well in production and exports in the past few years, it still relied heavily on overseas suppliers for core components and raw materials.
“This weak link needs to be bridged effectively to synchronise domestic demands and intentions to become a major global defence-industrial player,” Rawat said.

Weapons supply during conflict
The minister’s announcement comes as recent conflicts show how weapons can be quickly expended, underscoring the importance of a country’s defence manufacturing sector.
Citing India’s four-day conflict with Pakistan last year, Kumar said: “India needs to make them faster and in bigger numbers so it doesn’t run short in a longer fight. China is the harder problem. It can keep fighting for weeks. So India needs mass, not just good missiles, and more factories help with that.”
Ladwig said the conflict highlighted the need for India to build advanced weapons in sufficient quantities.
“The important shift is from possessing sophisticated indigenous missile technology to having the industrial capacity to manufacture it in quantity. This [defence ministry’s initiative] should eventually make it easier for India to build larger missile inventories and replenish them more rapidly,” he added.
Ladwig said that Delhi’s latest defence initiative would not help India narrow the gap with China in terms of production capacity, given Beijing’s much larger defence-industrial base.
According to Wankhede, India should not attempt to match China’s “enormous defence-industrial ecosystem”. Instead, it should focus more on closing the industrial gaps that would allow it to produce weapons more efficiently and replenish inventories faster, he added.
The move to transfer more defence technologies will also help boost the country’s competitiveness in defence exports, with analysts citing the success of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile system co-developed by India and Russia.
In recent years, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines have placed orders to buy the BrahMos from India, with Thailand reportedly exploring the system to boost its military capabilities.

Despite the success of BrahMos, India still has a long way to go before it can become a major weapons exporter, according to Kumar.
According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, India was not listed among the top 10 global arms exporters and was the world’s second largest arms importer between 2021 and 2025.
“Defence exports have hit a record. More factories mean India can promise buyers faster delivery, a strong selling point in Southeast Asia, where countries want a choice beyond China and Russia. None of this shifts the balance this year,” Kumar said.