Op Sindoor | 'Cheap Chinese Drone Parts Are An Addiction We’re Finally Breaking Away From' — Swarajya Interviews Drone Federation India Chief

The recent conflict between India and Pakistan following the Pahalgam attack saw both countries deploying drones on a large scale. While Pakistan used Turkish and Chinese-supplied systems, India employed Israeli and domestically-built drones.

This has brought renewed attention to India’s domestic drone ecosystem, as the country continues to work towards building its own homegrown drone technology to become self-reliant in this space.

Historically, India’s journey with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) began in 1993 with DRDO’s Project Kapothaka. Over the years, India imported various UAV systems such as the Heron I, Searcher Mk II, and Harop loitering munitions from Israel.

In the last decade, the industry has made substantial progress — from the blanket ban on civilian drone use in 2014 to setting up domestic manufacturing infrastructure, introducing the Drone Policy 2021, launching incentive schemes, implementing an import ban, and liberalizing export regulations. Additionally, a large number of startups focused on drones have emerged in recent years.

That said, the industry still faces many challenges.

Amidst the current spotlight on the drone sector, Swarajya spoke with Smit Shah, President of the Drone Federation India, to discuss the role of drones during this operation, and more importantly, the sector’s growing capabilities and future outlook.

1) How does DFI assess India's drone usage in this operation? Also, can you break down the different categories of Indian drones and their roles?

When we talk about Indian drones or drone technology in general, the different types of drones can be divided into the following classes.

First, there are surveillance drones—HALE (High Altitude Long Endurance) and MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance)—primarily used for intelligence gathering and reconnaissance. Then we come to the tactical drones, which are smaller and more agile, designed for flexible combat roles. Next are the mini and micro drones, which are compact and used for close-range operations.

There is also a growing focus on High-Altitude Pseudo Satellites (HAPS), which operate in the stratosphere and provide long-duration surveillance.

In terms of deployment, India used tactical and mini-class drones. These include loitering munitions, which hover over target zones and strike upon receiving a command or detecting a target.

Additionally, suicide drones—often small and equipped with explosives—are designed for one-way missions. Kamikaze drones are a subtype of these; they are pre-programmed to strike designated coordinates. A recoverable loitering munition is one that, if it doesn’t find the target or receives an abort command, can be recovered and reused.

Some of the existing MALE drones were used for identifying targets, verifying damage, and conducting battle assessments. The tactical-class drones were used to inflict damage.

2) Where does India’s defence drone industry currently stand? What proportion of our defence drones is domestically developed versus imported?

Based on the description, HALE and MALE drones serve strategic purposes, while the others primarily support tactical and situational needs in the field.

In the tactical and operational domain, India has been designing, developing, and manufacturing various types of drones. There are over 100 manufacturers building drones for defense and law enforcement applications.

Here, the design, development, and manufacturing are happening entirely within India. Yes, there is some supply chain dependency on components, but these products are made by Indian manufacturers based on Indian designs.

When we talk about the strategic segment—HALE and MALE drones—India essentially has partnerships with Israel. This includes the Heron series of UAVs developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and the latest one under the Adani-Elbit partnership, Drishti-10, which is the Indian version of the Hermes 900 surveillance UAV.

In this segment, the drones currently inducted involve foreign technology collaboration, with Indian partners contributing technology enhancements, indigenization, and local manufacturing.

The difference is that the original design for the strategic-class drones is not Indian, whereas in the tactical and operational domain, the designs are indigenous.

In a nutshell, considering the current situation, India already has the capability to continue building drones domestically. While some supply chain dependencies remain, the core production infrastructure exists within the country.

Unlike its neighbor, India does not have to rely entirely on foreign countries to purchase expensive drone systems or aircraft.

3) Talking about the neighbour’s suppliers – how have countries like Turkey scaled its drone industry?

Compared to Turkey, government motivation and investment in research and development of UAV technologies is what drives defense technology research. UAVs represent the next-generation technology for warfare. In some ecosystems, like those countries, UAV development has scaled primarily due to their geopolitical challenges, where regional tensions and conflicts have accelerated demand for this technology and increased production.

Their involvement in various conflicts has provided valuable experience. However, this advantage has mostly been against low-technology opponents—such as rebel groups or unorganized forces. This was the first time their drones were deployed against a military power, as they supplied Pakistan, which used them against India.

For India, the key learning is that an increasing portion of their supply chain is becoming localized.

While their drones may not yet be fully mature technologically, their manufacturing capabilities are well developed.

On the other hand, our technology is mature, but our supply chain still needs to become more localized.

When these drones appeared in India, media reports and press briefings highlighted their clear effectiveness. Now, it is up to Turkey to determine whether this was simply a popularized narrative or if the drones were genuinely effective—because if they truly were, then how were most of them neutralized by our air defense and counter-drone systems?

4) In light of recent developments, what is India’s current position in scaling up and becoming self-reliant in its drone industry, and what challenges remain

India’s drone industry is growing fast, with over 600 companies making drones or offering related services. 

Out of these, more than 100 companies are focused on drones for defence and police use. 

Around 25 companies are working on building advanced drones with offensive capabilities, showing real progress in making India more self-reliant in this area.

Like any other industry, supply chain has to be localised. But the production, whether it is the strategy class, tactical class or operational is happening in India. That has been the longstanding stance. 

There are more 50+ companies that are already working on building drone components in India—whether for the tactical and operational class — be it battery, motor, propellers, and structural elements like composites.

For the strategic drone segment, several automotive and defence companies that traditionally supplied parts to the military are now collaborating with tech partners in India to boost localisation. This is already a space seeing aggressive development. 

The government is also supporting this effort through the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, which encourages the manufacturing of key drone components. 

However, for both, these companies and the government, the conflict also provided many valuable lessons.

Question have come like how do you build attack capabilities? 

How do you build capabilities for delivering drones and payloads in electronic warfare (EW) environment — which is an environment where there will be jamming, whether it is radio frequency jamming or GPS jamming continuously.  

So how do you build drone technology that can be averse to jamming? How do you build drone swarms? And how do you put ammunition payloads in all of this to make sure that critical installations and critical military equipment of hit. 

These are some the sectors that India still needs to work on while we also continue to localise our supply chain, reduce import dependency along with technology development.

5) When we talk about parts being imported, despite known risks, many Indian defence drones were being developed with Chinese components. What were the reasons that manufacturers had to incorporate parts from China?

Mature defense manufacturers in the country are already diversifying their electronics supply chains away from non-land-bordering countries.

(Editor's note: The reference to “non-land bordering countries” is a subtle way to highlight India’s efforts to reduce dependency on electronics and components sourced from countries like China)

In terms of mechanical components like motors, carbon composites and all, there is an active effort by Indian industry to build those components in India and increase the share of localisation. 

But still, the reasons are manufacturing capacity of China, as well as the dumping habits, where they will build something in large volume and then they will try to dump the low-quality products in other markets, just to make sure that low quality products become an addiction to some of the local traders and assemblers. 

But if you look at India, there may be a greater number of companies with supplies from China. However, their market share is very low. This is because they have merely been an assembler of Chinese technology and have not been able to improve or enhance that technology or bring in significant changes in that. 

Even when the Army cancelled certain orders during scrutiny—due to the discovery of Chinese components—that decision was not linked to the practices of mature domestic manufacturers. The primary focus has been on completely eliminating dependency on China.

6) What steps are being taken to replace them with alternatives? And how is the industry addressing this gap of part dependency indigenously?

Firstly, there are alternative countries to source from—such as the Czech Republic, other European nations, and east-Asian countries like Japan and Taiwan. 

China was traditionally favoured because it was cheaper. When the market demand grew, countries began realising the need for self-sufficiency, reliability, and diversified supply chains. 

To help fill this gap locally, we are developing two key frameworks. 

The first is a technical framework focused on enhancing the cybersecurity of drones. This involves improving the technologies, chips, coding standards, and cybersecurity protection mechanisms used in drone systems to ensure secure operations and greater control.

The second is a logistical and administrative framework aimed at building supply chain resilience. This involves identifying critical components and materials used in drones and establishing diversified sourcing strategies—so we are not reliant on a single country or supplier for these essential parts.

Regarding specific components where we were previously import-dependent, today, over there are Indian companies producing propellers, motors, and batteries. 

Active research is ongoing, and more than 15 companies are working on battery technology—especially in areas that were previously reliant on imports. For example, while cells were once entirely imported, there are now four Indian companies developing them domestically.

7) We often hear that local drone makers struggle with slow procurement, limited order, and regulatory bottlenecks What are the main problems in the system, and what can be done to improve it?

Almost every company working in defense faces challenges such as lengthy trials and strict inspections due to the critical nature of the orders.

The hurdles arise not only with key components but also with supporting parts. Defense projects typically involve long cycles for approvals, orders, and payments.

However, for emerging technologies in particular, these delays and complexities need to be minimized to encourage faster progress.

For example, a supporting part like a mouse supplied with the product undergoes scrutiny based on its components and manufacturer—whether it’s from Dell or Lenovo.

In such cases, it is important to identify which parts are truly critical. Therefore, frameworks have been developed to help streamline the process and bring more clarity.

For instance, while the mouse itself may not be a critical component, it is important for the supply chain. Companies can then design systems so that they are compatible with not just one, but maybe three suppliers, preventing complete dependence on a single source.

Thus, these two aspects must be treated separately—cybersecurity resilience is different from supply chain resilience. For example, many electronic components may not be critical for cybersecurity but can be critical from a supply chain perspective.

As mentioned earlier, for emerging technologies that will provide asymmetric advantages in future battle scenarios, the processes to develop, acquire, and pay for these technologies need to be faster. Drones will be among the most important technologies offering this advantage.

In areas such as drones, counter-drones, and AI for weapons, the government should reduce bureaucracy, create clear technology roadmaps, and speed up procurement. There should also be spiral development programs where the government guides and supports Indian companies step by step, helping them design and build advanced capabilities within the country.