DAC clears Rs 1.10 lakh crore of defence buys, 98 percent from Indian firms

The Defence Acquisition Council, chaired by Rajnath Singh, granted Acceptance of Necessity on 7 September for capital purchases worth about Rs 1.10 lakh crore. The ministry said nearly 98 percent of the approved buys will come from Indian industry. Singh left the same evening for a three-day visit to Colombo, so the council sat before his departure.

AoN is administrative clearance, not a signed contract. Each proposal still has to pass a request for proposal, trials and price negotiation. Quantities change after those steps. The list is still useful because it shows where the services say they are short, and because the 98 percent domestic share is now an official target for this bundle.

For the Army the council cleared Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear recce vehicles, high mobility vehicles, self-propelled mechanical mine layers, Advanced Light Helicopters, trawl tanks and the Sarvatra bridge system. CBRN recce vehicles are built to sample air and ground after a chemical or radiological event. High mobility vehicles are the trucks that have to climb roads that ordinary fleets cannot. Mechanical mine layers are meant to put a field down faster than a dismounted crew. Advanced Light Helicopters give commanders a light lift option across broken ground. Trawl tanks push mine rakes ahead of an advancing column. Sarvatra is a modular bridging set already in Indian service, used to span gaps that artillery or floods have opened.

The Navy received clearance for Arudhra radars and for the design, development and later purchase of marine gas turbines. Arudhra sets are slated to replace air-route surveillance radars at naval air stations. That is a watch-the-sky job, not a shipboard fire-control job. Marine gas turbines are a longer project. Indian warships still depend on imported propulsion machinery. A domestic turbine line, if it reaches production, would change that supply chain over a decade rather than a single budget year. The wording of the AoN itself splits the work: first design and development, then procurement.

Air Force items include ground-based multi-purpose jammers to counter hostile radars and a Defence Forces Secure Access Card, an RFID smart card meant to replace paper identity documents across the three services. The ministry also described capability upgrades for fighters, transport aircraft and helicopters without publishing a platform-by-platform annex in the same note. Separate reporting on 7 September said a long-range air-to-air missile of more than 300 kilometres for the Su-30MKI was on the wider modernisation list. That missile is a different line item from the DAC bundle published the same day and should not be treated as part of the Rs 1.10 lakh crore AoN until the ministry places it there in writing.

The 98 percent domestic share is the political point. It tells Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics, private vehicle makers and smaller component shops that the next order book is meant to stay inside the country. It also leaves a 2 percent gap for items that Indian factories cannot yet make at the required specification. Past AoN rounds have seen that gap widen once trials start and a foreign sensor or engine is written back into the tender.

AoN figures often shrink when contracts are signed. Vendors drop out. The services cut numbers to fit a yearly cash ceiling. The useful test over the next year is how much of the Rs 1.10 lakh crore converts into purchase orders, and how much of the 98 percent target survives contact with actual bids. Until those orders are placed, the 7 September meeting is a statement of intent with a price tag attached.