India-Pakistan Conflict Surges Demand for Domestic Manufacturing of Defense & Drones

The conflict between India and Pakistan military has given a demand surge for homegrown defense and drone startups. The ongoing conflict has raised the awareness of India’s dependency on foreign manufactured supplies of drones. This has given a push for India to achieve increased manufacturing scale by supporting manufacturing and engineering capabilities in its home country.

Many industry experts have suggested India collaborate with stakeholders in this time of emergency to deliver more domestic defense technologies. They quoted a similar situation in Israel, further elaborating on how Israel has grown as one of the countries to gain large export orders. Israel started domestic manufacturing of defense technologies and machinery due to conflicts. 

Few of the experts have identified five crore drone manufacturers. Aligning these manufacturers with upstream suppliers can help in addressing the capacity issues.

ideaForge Technology’s vice president, Vishal Saxena stated that capacities cannot be built in a day. “During peacetime, people do realize the importance of building a military-industrial complex, but it often comes too late. Warfare has changed, and technology is now absolutely critical.” Previously, ideaForge’s drone solutions were utilized in ‘Operation Sindoor’ for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.

Zebu Intelligence Systems founder, Santosh Balajee Banisetty said, “The unit economics of using a Rs. 2.5 crore missile to take down a Rs. 25,000 drone doesn’t work. Our counter-drone technology aims to bring down the cost to below Rs. 10 lakh, by using drones to take down other drones instead of using missiles.”