Big Boost To Indigenous Defence Manufacturing As DRDO Invites Private Firms For Missile, Bomb Projects

New Delhi: Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the agency charged with the military's research and development, has invited domestic private companies to be “partner in the development and production of missile and bomb weapon system projects of MSS (missiles and strategic systems) cluster”. The move is seen as an aim to expand the scope of the country's indigenous defence manufacturing capabilities.

“The objective of this EoI is to identify and shortlist potential development-cum-production partners (DcPPs) for development and production of missile/bomb weapon system projects of missiles and strategic systems cluster,” DRDO said in an expression of interest (EoI).

The EoI comes as the government seeks to boost India’s capacity to manufacture strategic weapons on a larger scale domestically. DRDO has already enabled the large-scale production of systems including Agni, Prithvi and Akash missiles, as well as the Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launcher (MBRL), through partnerships with public and private sector firms, according to Times of India report.

Requirements for shortlisted firms

As part of the partnership model, shortlisted firms would be mandated to meet DRDO's technical, manufacturing and infrastructure requirements before being considered for production-related responsibilities.

The selected companies will subsequently be considered for project-specific requests for proposal (RFPs).

Role of selected companies

The selected company will be involved in the development, assembly and integration of the DRDO project and will be equipped to undertake the integration and qualification of the weapon designed and developed by DRDO. Following the completion of development and user trials, the company can work with the supply chain identified by DRDO to fulfil production orders from the three armed forces.