For the first time, the Centre is working towards creating seven clusters of States and union territories, each backed by dedicated IITs and other centres of excellence to provide intellectual capital for forming a federal architecture to catalyse defence manufacturing which has the potential to force-multiply the country’s economy and reduce import dependence. These are independent of two existing defence industrial corridors in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Tamil Nadu (TN).

The Ministry of Defence’s whole of nation proposal is at a fairly advanced stage of consideration. So far, Secretary Department of Defence Production Sanjeev Kumar, has taken two meetings of all the stakeholders -- States, UTs, defence PSUs, IITs and centres of excellence -- on June 2 and June 10 and formalised all the seven clusters, given each of them tasks to prepare individual roadmap or vision document on the decided themes, said official sources privy to the development still to be made public.

The clusters have been asked to prepare their reports by next month. Each of them has to come up with how they can contribute to the thematic agenda, their pain points, infrastructural requirements, regulatory regime that is in sync with States and centre, steps needed for ease of doing business, among others, said a senior officer involved in the process. On that, Centre will have further deliberations to come up with some sort of policy push to invigorate the economy.

The officer explained that the structural shift will provide both direct value-addition and cascading macroeconomic benefits. Such as, it will act as an ‘output GDP multiplier’, meaning that every single rupee spent or generated in the defense manufacturing sector creates more than double that amount of total economic activity across the country.

All the seven clusters will each have a ‘lead’ and a ‘co-lead’ State, participating States and UTs, and defined IITs and centres of excellence to provide R&D and innovation support for onboarding collective defence manufacturing capabilities. Each of them have also a theme to guide their manufacturing ecosystem.

Like, the first cluster is headed by Karnataka, which has Rajasthan as co-lead and Kerala and Chhattisgarh are participating States. IISc Bangalore, IIT Dharwad, IIT Jodhpur, IIT Palakkad and IIT Bhilai have been designated to offer intellectual property to the proposed manufacturing architecture. They have been clubbed under the theme; “Policy, Institutional Architecture and Governance”.

The second; bound by theme: “Indigenisation & Enhanced Private Participation, MSME, Start-up & Innovation Ecosystem”; has Maharashtra, which has a fairly developed defence manufacturing base, as the lead State followed by Madhya Pradesh as co-lead and Goa and Puducherry as participating UTs. IIT Bombay, which is already assisting defence forces through innovative solutions, IIT Indore and IIT Goa are the institutional stakeholders of the cluster.

The third is led by Uttar Pradesh, one of the two States along with Tamil Nadu which has defence industrial corridors, with Jharkhand seconding as co-lead, and Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir getting accommodated in the federal push to scale up indigenous capacity and capability. IIT Kanpur, already declared by the MoD as the hub for military drone development, IIT BHU, IIT Roorkee and IIT Jammu are institutional partners. The theme to drive the cluster is: “Testing, Certification, Quality Assurance and Standards”.

The fourth has been dedicated to serve primarily the northeastern States. Assam, which has been demanding a dedicated defence industrial corridor, will lead the cluster with Tripura as co-lead. AP, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Ladakh will join to contribute in the national defence production, with lone IIT Guwahati offering the intellectual support. The cluster is intended to provide “Special Focus on Northeastern and Border States” through its guiding theme.

The fifth has Telangana, one of the southern States which already has some production visibility which has been clubbed with Haryana as co-lead and UTs -- Delhi, Chandigarh and Dadar & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, as other participating regions. IIT Hyderabad and IIT Delhi will be the institutional stakeholders. It carries theme of “ Market Access, Demand Visibility & Defence Export.”

The sixth is led by Gujarat, which has got the first private aerospace manufacturing facility to build transporter C-295 for IAF, and seconded by Odisha with Himachal Pradesh and Bihar being proposed as participating States having backing of IIT Gandhinagar, Rashtra Raksha University, IIT Bhubaneshwar and IIT Mandi, for R&D activities. The theme is: “Skill Development, & Industry-Academia-Research & Innovation Linkages”.

Finally, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, billed as lead and co-lead States, have IIT Madras, IIT Tirupati and IIT Ropar as institutional stakeholders to work towards the theme: “Defence Industrial Infrastructure, Clusters & Common Facilities.”

State governments, however, are aggressively advancing localised defence and aerospace clusters to capitalise on relaxed FDI caps and positive indigenisation lists, apart from a revised procurement procedure that is tightening procurement procedure cycle, relaxing requirements to offer level playing field to private sector as well.

Published on June 21, 2026