Indian defence companies are sitting on a combined order book of Rs 15 lakh crore, claimed an X (formerly Twitter) user, who goes by the name Chenthil. "That is not a projection. That is confirmed, contracted work waiting to be executed," he said.

"Five companies hold the bulk of it. HAL. Bharat Electronics. Bharat Dynamics. Mazagon Dock. L&T's precision engineering division (a division of L&T Group). Yesterday the Defence Secretary said India will exceed Rs 50,000 crore in annual defence exports well before the FY29 target. Current run rate: Rs 38,424 crore in FY26, up 61 percent in one year," he added.

"I have been in Indian industry long enough to know that order books can be misleading. But this one is different. These are sovereign contracts backed by a defence budget that went from Rs 2.53 lakh crore in 2013-14 to Rs 7.85 lakh crore today. A 3x increase in a decade," the person also stated.

"What changed? The 75 per cent domestic sourcing mandate for capital procurement. That single policy decision created a captive market that no import lobby can reverse. HAL alone is scaling Tejas production to 24 jets a year," he noted.

"India was the world's largest arms importer for decades. Now Indian companies have a Rs 15 lakh crore runway to become exporters. That is the most underappreciated industrial transition happening in this country right now," Chenthil further stated.

Separately, data from PRIME Database showed mixed mutual fund (MF) activity in March across defence counters. Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), Zen Technologies, Data Patterns (India) Ltd and Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL) saw inflows, while Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) witnessed notable selling.

Among the stocks that attracted MF buying was HAL, where mutual funds raised their stake to 5.84 per cent in March from 5.73 per cent in February, purchasing a net Rs 272 crore worth of shares.

Zen Technologies saw Rs 155 crore worth buying, as MFs upped stakes to 6.77 per cent from 5.83 per cent in February. MFs bought a net Rs 101 crore in Data Patterns, while Bharat Dynamics attracted Rs 64 crore worth of buying during the month.