Chief of Defence Staff General NS Raja Subramani has said that it is important for the industry to move quickly from prototype to product as fast as possible at a discussion on Atmanirbharta in defence and related issues at the NDTV Defence Summit 2026.
“Our job as defence forces is not to ask for technological solutions. “What would I like from the industry? I would like the industry to quickly move from prototype to product as far as possible, as fast as possible. “As far as the academy or the researchers are concerned, I would request you to be problem solvers, not problem creators, not only giving us products. Solve the problems that we have. Work with us, focus on outcomes…
Work with us, iterate with us so that we can deploy faster and we deploy at scale,” the Chief of Defence Staff said.
He said many years ago the armed forces would not even talk to the industry; however, the armed forces now treat industry as partners. Our job is to articulate the problems, articulate the effects that we desire and allow industry to come up with technological solutions to the effects that we want to,” General Subramani said. We require research that comes up with outcomes that we want, at speed and one that can be scaled,” General Subramani said. Collaborative approaches between the defence forces and the industry are already working now and there are many startups that would vouch for it, according to him.
Things have changed since then.
Twelve years ago, ‘Make in India’ was launched with the ambition of becoming a global hub for manufacturing, design and innovation. The comments come amid the government stepping up measures to strengthen the country’s defence capabilities while expanding indigenous production and technology development of military hardware. The value of indigenous defence production increased from Rs 46,429 crore in 2014-15 to a record Rs 1.78 lakh crore in 2025-26, the government had said recently. Today, the initiative focuses on 27 sectors, which include 15 in manufacturing and 12 in services.
