The head of Adani Defence and Aerospace on Saturday called for India to stop awarding weapons contracts on a nomination basis to state-owned companies, arguing that a level playing field was essential if the private sector was to help meet the government’s goal of building a self-reliant defence industry.
“The most important policy measure where we are looking for a change is to stop giving orders on a nomination basis to the public sector,” Adani Defence CEO Ashish Rajvanshi, told the NDTV Defence Summit in New Delhi. “Give us an opportunity, and if we fail, then absolutely go back to the established players.”
India corporatised its state-run Ordnance Factory Board in 2021, a step intended to bring greater efficiency to a system widely seen as slow and inefficient. Yet large orders for aircraft, missiles and radar still largely flow to companies such as Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics and Bharat Dynamics. Rajvanshi said that while public companies had a role, restricting contracts to them risked stifling innovation.
Rajvanshi said global conflicts had underlined the need for India to invest in next-generation systems. Drawing on lessons from the Ukraine war and India’s own Operation Sindhu, he highlighted the growing importance of drones, artificial intelligence and “cognitive warfare” – the integration of man and machine on the battlefield.
“This is no longer a mechanical job of picking up an artillery gun and firing a round,” he said. “You are dealing with advanced technology under pressure. In five years, a soldier at the border could be operating in an exoskeleton alongside swarms of drones and unmanned ground robots.”
He argued that India needed to build “cognitive warriors” who could operate in data-heavy environments where AI-driven command centres provide real-time targeting and threat assessments.
Industry and policy integration
The Adani executive stressed that India’s defence planning could not be episodic or reactive. He called for a 15-year capability roadmap aligned with the government’s target of full self-reliance in defence by 2047. Such planning, he said, should remain stable regardless of changes in political leadership or military command.
Rajvanshi rejected suggestions that the private sector had underperformed, pointing out that companies like Adani only began working on full platforms in 2017-18. “It is too soon to write off the private industry,” he said, adding that comparisons should be drawn with how firms like Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Saab developed over decades with consistent government support.
On manufacturing, he argued that India could not afford to rely on imports in prolonged conflicts. “A war can go on for years. We cannot be planning for just 14 days of fighting,” he said, adding that the Russia-Ukraine war had shown the importance of volume production at the right cost.
Rajvanshi linked defence manufacturing to wider economic goals, noting that India’s services-led growth was reaching its limit and manufacturing had to expand to absorb millions of engineers graduating each year.
Strategic autonomy and talent
Rajvanshi said India should develop its own model of strategic autonomy by combining the discipline of the US system, Israel’s innovation urgency and France’s centralised approach, but moulding it to India’s democratic context.
On the question of talent, he said India had no shortage of skilled engineers but lacked platforms to channel their energy into defence. Government initiatives such as the Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) programme, which funds student and startup prototypes, had begun to change perceptions, he said.
“The kids coming out of engineering colleges are the best in class. Given the right platform they are much superior to what we have seen in the Western market,” Rajvanshi said, adding that the challenge lay in industry and government creating purpose and longevity in defence careers.
The government has set a target of achieving defence production worth $25 billion by 2025, with exports contributing $5 billion. Defence industry experts say that meeting such ambitions will depend on the pace of reform in procurement policies and how quickly private companies can scale up to compete with established state players.
