India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has achieved a significant milestone under its flagship Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) initiative, marking a decisive step in strengthening indigenous defence innovation and manufacturing.
The ministry has now awarded a cumulative total of around 650 innovation and development contracts to Indian start-ups, MSMEs, and individual innovators. These contracts collectively account for an investment value of approximately ₹3,000 crore, aimed at accelerating rapid prototyping and technology maturation across diverse domains within the national defence ecosystem.
Expanding The Innovation Ecosystem
The iDEX platform, launched in 2018, has evolved into a major catalyst for India’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat vision in defence R&D. The latest milestone reflects not only the success in attracting young innovators and private enterprises into the defence domain but also a systemic transformation in how the MoD facilitates dual-use and military technology. The contracts awarded span over 50 technology categories, including unmanned aerial and ground systems, advanced ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) payloads, encryption-based secure communication networks, AI-driven battlefield analytics, and miniaturised propulsion and guidance systems.
Accelerating Rapid Prototyping And Technology Transition
Under the iDEX model, innovators and MSMEs receive early-stage funding, technical mentorship, and direct access to user agencies within the Indian Armed Forces and DRDO. The ₹3,000 crore investment serves as both a developmental grant and a market-access mechanism—enabling start-ups to move from concept demonstrations to production-ready prototypes. Many of these projects are now entering integration trials with tri-service platforms, including drone swarms, secure tactical radios, maritime surveillance systems, and counter-UAV technologies validated by the Army Design Bureau and Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Organisations (NIIO).
Strengthening Defence Industrial Supply Chains
Beyond innovation competitions, iDEX has become the foundation of a sustainable defence industrial base supporting Make in India under procurement categories such as Make-II and iDEX Prime. These structured pathways promote co-development with public sector units and defence production agencies like HAL, BEL, and BDL, while leveraging private sector agility. The expanding base of over 350 start-ups and 100 MSMEs is enabling modular subsystems development, import substitution, and component-level innovation in avionics, sensors, secure networking, EW systems, and materials science.
Policy Support And Future Roadmap
The milestone aligns with the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP 2020) and MoD’s goal to channel at least 25% of its R&D budget toward industry-led innovation. The Defence India Start-up Challenge (DISC) and iDEX Prime verticals continue to identify mission-ready technologies for field deployment by 2026–27. Furthermore, integration with the Technology Development Fund (TDF) and newly established Defence Industrial Corridors in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh ensures that iDEX-supported prototypes advance into scalable production stages.
Significance For Aatmanirbhar Bharat
This cumulative progress demonstrates how iDEX has become the centrepiece of the MoD’s self-reliance architecture—bridging the gap between idea incubation and product induction. By empowering Indian innovators with funding, mentorship, and user interface, the platform is reinforcing India’s defence supply autonomy and reducing reliance on imported components. The 650 awarded projects collectively symbolise a maturing ecosystem that merges innovation, entrepreneurship, and strategic defence capability building—laying the operational and technological groundwork for a robust Aatmanirbhar Bharat in the coming decade.
IDN (With Agency Inputs)