Army Signs Rs 1,577 Crore Deal With Tata and NIBE for 840 Long-Range Attack Drones

A major order for indigenous loitering munitions

The Ministry of Defence on 14 August 2026 signed contracts worth about Rs 1,577 crore with Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) and NIBE Limited for the supply of 840 long-range attack drones — loitering munition systems, along with associated munitions and accessories — to the Indian Army. The contracts were signed in New Delhi in the presence of Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh.

Loitering munitions, sometimes called kamikaze or suicide drones, occupy a middle ground between reconnaissance drones and guided missiles: they can circle over a battlefield, wait for a target to be identified, and then dive into it and detonate. Their growing prominence in modern conflict has made them one of the most sought-after capabilities in the world's armies, and India has been moving quickly to build a domestic supply base for them.

How the order splits

Following extensive trials and technical evaluation, Tata Advanced Systems emerged as the lowest (L1) bidder and will supply 64 per cent of the order, while NIBE will deliver the remaining 36 per cent. Splitting a large procurement between two qualified Indian vendors is a deliberate feature of the defence ministry's approach — it keeps more than one production line warm, hedges against delivery risk and deepens the domestic industrial base rather than concentrating it in a single firm.

Built for a jammed battlefield

The drones being acquired have a strike range exceeding 100 kilometres and are specifically designed to operate in contested environments where adversaries employ heavy electronic jamming and satellite-navigation spoofing. That requirement reflects hard lessons from recent conflicts, where cheap drones have been blunted by electronic warfare; systems that can hold their course and complete a strike when GPS and communications links are degraded command a premium.

The defence ministry described the equipment as a critical asset for the Army's artillery regiments, saying it would strengthen their precision-strike capability and overall operational effectiveness. Long-range loitering munitions extend the reach of artillery formations, letting them hit high-value targets deep behind the line of contact without putting crewed aircraft or forward troops at risk.

Part of a wider indigenisation push

The Tata and NIBE contracts are the latest in a run of orders that has turned unmanned systems into one of the fastest-moving corners of India's defence-industrial policy. The government has leaned on the Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat frameworks to route drone and munition procurement toward domestic manufacturers, and toward startups and private primes as well as the traditional public-sector units.

For the two winners, the deal is a marquee validation. Tata Advanced Systems has been expanding across aerostructures, missiles and unmanned platforms, while NIBE has grown from a defence-components supplier into a systems integrator competing for prime contracts. An order of this scale — 840 systems with a jamming-resistant, 100-kilometre-plus profile — signals that Indian industry is being trusted with capabilities that were, until recently, imported.

The takeaway

Beyond the headline value, the significance of the 14 August signing lies in what it standardises: precision, long range and resilience to electronic warfare, delivered by Indian firms at production scale. As drones reshape the economics of the battlefield, India's push to own that supply chain — rather than buy it — is becoming one of the defining threads of its deep-tech defence strategy.

Sources

• Business Today — Indian Army signs Rs 1,577 crore drone contracts with Tata, NIBE for 840 long-range attack drones
• India Sentinels — MoD signs Rs 1,577 crore contracts with Tata and NIBE for loiter munition systems
• Indian Defense News — Indian Army signs Rs 1,577 crore drone contract with Tata and NIBE