By N. C. Bipindra

New Delhi: India, on February 10, 2026, released the draft Defence Acquisition Procedure 2026 (DAP-2026), aimed at Jointness, Atmanirbharta (Self-Reliance), and Integration (JAI) of the armed forces, military modernisation, and faster procurement of military systems, to drive the nation’s aerospace and defence ecosystem development and growth through production scaling.

“The proposed draft aims to align India’s defence acquisition with the rapidly evolving geo-strategic landscape, growth of Indian economy, skilling of human capital, growth of private defence industry in the country and the technological imperatives of modern warfare,” a statement from the Defence Ministry said.

Once approved, the draft DAP-2026 would replace the Defence Acquisition Procedure-2020 that has governed the Indian military procurements for the last over six years. The Department of Defence described the DAP as the cornerstone for the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (Self-Reliance) initiative in defence.

The draft DAP-2026 focuses on institutionalised preference for ‘Buy (Indian-IDDM)’ (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured) category for procurement, thereby boosting domestic manufacturing and effective reduction of imports.

The proposed draft would ensure categorisation and procurement strategy based on technological availability and manufacturing readiness, exclusive procedures for faster acquisition of equipment with short technological cycle, spiral designing and procurement of major platforms, exploitation of modern technology before bulk procurement, pragmatic Indigenous Content (IC) and Indigenous Design (ID) content evaluation, and utilisation of indigenous military material, among others.

The new DAP proposed to ease financial and experience criteria for inclusive participation, delegation of decision making for quicker acquisition, revamping of trials and quality assurance processes, aggressive infusion of digitisation and automation in acquisition procedures and processes, Atmanirbharta with focus on indigenous designing and retention of IPR, along with incentives for innovations.

“The DAP would boost defence manufacturing and exports along with restriction on import to domestically non-available and critical equipment only,” the Defence Ministry said in the statement.

Along with the draft DAP-2026, the Defence Ministry also released the Handbook on Guidelines & Annexures. The Defence Ministry sought comments and suggestions on the draft DAP-2026 from the stakeholders on its email secy-dap2025@gov.in or tmls-mod@nic.in in either pdf or MS Word format within the next three weeks or before March 3, 2026.

While the Defence Procurement Manual (DPM) 2025 deals with maintenance and sustenance of defence equipment, platforms, and systems under the Revenue head of expenditure, the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) deals with the capital procurement of equipment, platforms, and systems under the Capital head of expenditure.

“The DAP-2026 intends to weave the security of the nation and technological growth in a single thread and create the canvas for Viksit Bharat-2047,” the Defence Ministry added.

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