Drone Federation of India president Smit Sharma on May 16 credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for building the drone ecosystem of the country, paving the to become a global hub.
“Personally, I mean it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi who should be the only person who should take the primary credit for a for an intervention like this and of course it was industry academy and all government coming together under this central vision, not the vision about policy change, but about the uh entire vision of India becoming a global drone hub with a specific focus on creating intellectual property,” Shah said during a panel discussion on “Defending Bharat” at the Powering Bharat Summit 2025.
The Powering Bharat Summit is organised by Network18 in collaboration with Moneycontrol, News18 India, and CNBC Awaaz, bringing together key government ministers and industry leaders to chart India’s journey toward becoming a developed nation by 2047.
Shah said one of the key factors that helped India in this new-age warfare was the country’s focus on creating a strong IP pool.
“What happens is in lot of other ecosystems we try to focus on manufacturing and manufacturing can only take you to building production, but technology enhancement and cutting edge in tech only happens when you focus on IP. So that's the niche that came in that is what worked for us that is the power that sort of manifested itself in the skies in the conflict.”
Shah, however, pointed out some of the issues that needs to be sorted out. He said the drone procurement process is “slightly slower” as the nature of the process demands for more than one company to participate. “User and industry need to sit together and create a roadmap,” he said.
“Irrespective of what platform you are building, it has to be electronic warfare hardened. For that you need to develop a lot of ancillary technologies -- such as GPS jamming proof, RF communication jamming proof and so on.”
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