The Defence Acquisition Council on July 3 gave Acceptance of Necessity to proposals estimated at Rs 52,000 crore. The ministry explicitly describes this as in-principle administrative approval.
The proposals address different functions. The Army list includes counter-drone electronic warfare and air-defence systems. The Navy list combines an unmanned aerial system with a land-based facility for testing electric-propulsion equipment. The Air Force proposals include a high-altitude platform intended for surveillance, communications and remote sensing.
The testing facility is a particularly important distinction: it supports evaluation of propulsion components on land, rather than being an operational vessel. Likewise, a surveillance platform and a weapon intercepting aerial threats perform different tasks, even though both appear in one approval package.
The Rs 52,000 crore estimate combines these different requirements at the administrative-approval stage, before delivery.
