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Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh reviewed the annual performance of all 16 Defence Public Sector Undertakings in New Delhi on 1 September 2026, briefed by Secretary (Defence Production) Shri Sanjeev Kumar and the CMDs of the DPSUs.
India's defence production in 2025-26 was approximately Rs 1.8 lakh crore, of which the DPSUs contributed Rs 1.29 lakh crore.
The CMDs of seven DPSUs - HAL, Mazagon Dock, BEL, BDL, GRSE, BEML and MIDHANI - presented dividend cheques totalling Rs 3,951 crore for the Government's equity shares for FY 2025-26.
Four publications were released: 'Aatmanirbhar DPSU', DISHA (an industry-student interaction initiative), and HAL's Modernisation and Indigenisation Roadmaps.
Addressing an MSME event at Greater Noida the same day, the Minister urged MSMEs to invest in R&D and partnerships, noting their number has grown from about 4.67 crore in 2012-13 to about 8 crore today.
Administers the DPSUs, the indigenisation programme, the Positive Indigenisation Lists, the SRIJAN portal and the defence industrial corridors.
With effect from 1 October 2021 the erstwhile Ordnance Factory Board was dissolved and its 41 production units transferred to seven new DPSUs - Munitions India Limited, Armoured Vehicles Nigam Limited, Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited, Troop Comforts Limited, Yantra India Limited, India Optel Limited and Gliders India Limited. This is what took the DPSU count to 16.
India's principal aerospace DPSU - manufacturer of the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, helicopters and aero-engines; two roadmaps for its modernisation and indigenisation were released at this event.
Implements the iDEX framework, funding start-ups, MSMEs and individual innovators to develop defence technologies; it also runs ADITI for deep-tech challenges.
Bring start-ups, MSMEs, innovators, R&D institutes and academia into defence and aerospace innovation, with funding and problem statements from the armed forces.
Key: Launched in April 2018 and implemented by the Defence Innovation Organisation; it works through Defence India Start-up Challenges that put out service-defined problem statements for competitive solutions.
Support deep-tech, critical and strategic technologies that a normal iDEX challenge cannot fund to maturity.
Key: Launched on 4 March 2024 at DefConnect with a corpus of Rs 750 crore for FY 2023-24 to 2025-26, covering areas such as AI, quantum, cyber, satellite communication, semiconductors and underwater surveillance.
Create assured demand for domestic industry by barring the import of listed items beyond notified timelines.
Key: Five lists have been notified covering over 5,500 items; the services and DPSUs must source these domestically once the embargo date passes.
An online indigenisation platform on which DPSUs and the services list imported items so that Indian industry can offer to make them.
Key: Launched in 2020 by the Department of Defence Production; thousands of items listed on it, including items from the Positive Indigenisation Lists, have since been indigenised.
Concentrate defence manufacturing investment, testing infrastructure and the supplier base in designated geographies.
Key: Two corridors - the Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor and the Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor. The Minister singled out the UP corridor as the reason North Indian MSMEs can move from being suppliers to being system developers and exporters.
Unveiled on 28 September 2020 and effective from 1 October 2020, it superseded the Defence Procurement Procedure, 2016. It places Buy (Indian-IDDM) - indigenously designed, developed and manufactured, with a minimum 50% indigenous content - at the top of the procurement preference order, and reserves several categories exclusively for Indian vendors.
An executive decision of the Government, effective 1 October 2021, that dissolved the OFB and vested its 41 production units and identified non-production units in seven new fully government-owned defence companies.
GS Paper 3 > Security > Defence Industry, Indigenisation and Technology Missions
General Awareness > Defence and Current Affairs
General Awareness > Indian Defence Industry
Defence indigenisation, iDEX and production/export figures recur every year across UPSC, CDS and defence recruitment papers.
Defence Public Sector Undertaking - a government-owned defence manufacturing company under the Department of Defence Production; there are 16.
The highest-priority procurement category under DAP 2020 - equipment indigenously designed, developed and manufactured with at least 50% indigenous content.
A notified list of items that cannot be imported beyond a stated timeline, creating assured domestic demand.
Converting a government department or board into one or more companies - here, the OFB into seven fully government-owned DPSUs - without transferring ownership to private hands.