General NS Raja Subramani’s proposed five-year outlook places predictable planning at the centre of India’s defence procurement debate. The aim is to give the armed forces and industry a clearer view of upcoming requirements, while encouraging manufacturers to invest in the capabilities needed to meet them. The roadmap’s significance lies not only in what India buys, but in how quickly systems can be developed, integrated, produced and kept operational.
The approach reflects a battlefield that is becoming more connected and harder to divide into front and rear. At News18 Defcon 2026, Subramani described future conflict as contested across domains and warned that surveillance and strike capabilities are shrinking the time between detecting a target and engaging it. “There is increasingly no safer rear,” he said, pointing to a security environment in which networks, sensors and algorithms can compress decision-making to minutes or seconds.
His five-part BUILD framework-Battlefield, Understanding the changing economics of warfare, Integration, Learning and adaptation, and Delivery at scale-provides a broader context for the procurement push. Rather than treating equipment purchases as isolated transactions, it connects operational needs with technology, industrial capacity and long-term sustainment. The message to suppliers is that sophisticated systems matter, but so do interoperability, affordability, repairability and the capacity to replenish equipment during a drawn-out conflict.
That emphasis is reflected in the Union Budget for 2026-27. The government allocated more than ₹2.19 lakh crore under the capital head for the armed forces, including ₹1.85 lakh crore for capital acquisition. It earmarked ₹1.39 lakh crore for procurement from domestic defence industries and reserved around 75% of the capital-acquisition budget for domestic industry. Planned purchases include aircraft, weapons, ships, submarines, unmanned aerial vehicles and drones.
The scale of funding creates an opportunity, but it does not by itself guarantee faster delivery or technological independence. PRS Legislative Research notes that India remained the world’s second-largest arms importer in 202024, accounting for 8.3% of global arms imports. It also highlights continuing challenges in high-technology manufacturing, research and development and quality. The procurement roadmap’s test will therefore be whether spending translates into reliable systems that Indian forces can use, upgrade and sustain.
Subramani has also urged the defence industry to plan beyond individual tenders. In an address to industry representatives, he called for clearer visibility into requirements over the next five to seven years and for closer partnerships between the armed forces and manufacturers. He argued that companies should be assessed not just on the sophistication of a product, but on whether they can produce it in volume, modify it quickly and support it through its service life.
This matters because procurement choices can create long-lasting dependencies. Imported equipment may require overseas support, spare parts and approval for upgrades. Indigenous production can reduce some of those risks, but local assembly alone does not necessarily mean India controls a system’s critical technology or intellectual property.
Gen Subramani has highlighted the importance of being able to modify, integrate and sustain equipment-capabilities that affect military readiness as much as the initial purchase.
The BUILD framework likewise stresses that cost and endurance must be considered together. Relatively inexpensive drones can threaten high-value platforms, while systems must remain effective well beyond the opening phase of a conflict. The CDS has called for an “experiment-deploy-learn-modify at scale” cycle, signalling a preference for faster adaptation over lengthy procurement processes that lock forces into designs before operational lessons can be applied.
A five-year roadmap could help industry plan investments and help the services sequence capability needs. Its value, however, will depend on turning forecasts into stable requirements, timely contracts and practical collaboration-without sacrificing competition, scrutiny or performance. India’s challenge is to buy at the speed of technological change while building equipment it can afford, integrate and sustain. That is the strategic promise behind Gen Subramani’s call: procurement as a foundation for combat readiness, not simply a list of future purchases.
