All Guns Blazing

India is the world’s sixth largest military spender*. Why should it lag behind with regard to R&D in the defence sector?

- Dhiraj Mathur and Nipun Aggarwal

Research and Development (R&D) activity in India has generally been neglected, and has been dominated by government-owned organisations. This is particularly true in the aerospace and defence (a&D) sector, where government organisations such as Defence Research and Development organization (DRDo) labs, gas Turbine Research Establishment (gTRE), Council of scientific and Industrial Research (CsIR), and Defence Public sector Undertakings (DPsUs) undertook almost all R&D until the early 2000s. however, once the defence sector was opened to private and foreign investment, India has evolved into an attractive destination for R&D, simulation, and engineering services due to its inherent advantages—a large number of qualified, low-cost engineers and scientists.

In the last decade and a half, the country has welcomed private foreign investment in R&D with the government’s policy support and tax incentives. This has resulted in global a&D majors such as airbus, Boeing, snecma, Textron, honeywell, Rockwell, and gE aviation establishing their technology and engineering centres in India. out of these, some companies have also engaged with academic institutions here for their design and development programmes.