Paras Defence nears first Indian Army order for made-in-India portable drone jammers

The landmark contract—worth up to $3 million—for the homegrown defence manufacturing and technology firm is set to be signed as part of the defence ministry’s emergency defence procurement in the aftermath of April’s Operation Sindoor against Pakistan, three people with direct knowledge of the discussions told Mint.

Paras Defence successfully tested an indigenously developed portable, handheld drone jamming system in July. Now, it has been “shortlisted to supply up to 20 units of Chimera 200, which has already shown on-field to Indian army veterans that it has a working radius of 3km,” said the company’s director Amit Mahajan.

The company designed and built the drone jammer—about the size of an office briefcase—at its own facility and in partnership with Centum Electronics, an Indian defence- and industrial applications-focused electronics manufacturer.

On 1 July, it secured its first order for the Chimera 200, worth $2.6 million, from French air defence service provider Cerbair.

Mahajan said a single jammer costs around $136,000. “We haven’t actively marketed the product yet, and the first commercial order we’ve received, along with the emergency procurement interest from the ministry of defence, is an organic interest rising from the need for compact defence technologies at a time of rising geopolitical unrest.”

Quest for agility

Procuring compact air defence solutions has been on the radar of both the Indian Army and Air Force for a long time, concurred a senior consultant who works closely with the defence ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity since the contract has not yet been signed.

“Now, with the emergency procurement window of fast-tracked defence orders available to the armed forces, a deal for portable drone jammers is expected to be closed within the next three months,” said the consultant.

India’s air defence systems include heavy artillery, which is effective but lacks agility, according to experts.

Paras’ portable drone jammers—which use wideband frequencies, or in simple terms, a broad range of waves, to detect and jam a target—will help meet this need for agility.

“The current air defence systems, including the Russian S-400 Triumf, are all equipped for heavy conflict. With modern-day geopolitical conflicts having transformed significantly, the need of the hour is for easy-to-deploy air defence systems—as well as taking a tiered approach for a wide range of conflicts,” said a security expert at a global think tank, on condition of anonymity.

“With combat drone attacks becoming increasingly common, as seen during India’s brief stand-off with Pakistan this April, portable jammers are a critical infrastructure that can make up the first line of India’s air defence systems,” the expert added.

Mint’s emailed queries to the defence ministry remained unanswered until press time.

Paras Defence’s ascent

In its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) four years ago, Paras Defence, incorporated in 2009 in its present form, said it is one of India’s few indigenous design, development and manufacturing (IDDM) firms, focusing squarely on defence technologies.

While it still outsources electronics—fellow homegrown firm Centum Electronics is a key partner, Mahajan said—it manufactures its offerings, including the Chimera 200 drone jammer, at its two production lines in Maharashtra.

The company reported net annual revenue of ₹334 crore and net profit of ₹21 crore in 2024-25, up 44% and 117%, respectively. Mahajan said, driven by multiple defence ministry contracts, including the portable jammers, as well as deals with vendor partners in Japan, it expects to cross ₹500 crore in revenue in 2025-26.

“We have an order book of close to ₹1,000 crore already, and expect to close landmark deals, including a strategically important one, before the end of this fiscal. This will further position us as a key partner to Indian defence forces,” Mahajan added.

On 27 July, Mint reported that a $35 million emergency procurement deal was also in line for American combat drone technology, via the Indian Air Force. Both deals are expected to be signed by the end of this calendar year.

To be sure, following Operation Sindoor, the Centre sanctioned the sixth emergency procurement power phase with a net outlay of $4.5 billion across the three arms of the defence forces. Each deal can be worth up to $35 million. Similar emergency procurement programmes were announced after the Uri terrorist attack in 2016 and the Galwan Valley clash in 2020.

Defence shift

To be sure, Paras Defence is not the only one whose technology is under evaluation. A third senior official close to the developments said that aerial defence systems for various categories of drones, from reconnaissance to heavy combat, are under evaluation with the army. Platforms by the Centre’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in partnership with Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), as well as private entities including Adani Defence and Aerospace, are vying for a part of emergency procurement contracts—each of which is worth up to ₹300 crore ($35 million).

Shailender Arya, former adviser in the defence ministry and senior adviser at global strategic advisory firm The Asia Group, said that in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, the Centre saw an urgent need to upgrade India’s air defence systems. “These systems were traditionally oriented toward neutralizing enemy aircraft, and not technology-oriented to counter swarm drones, particularly the smaller Turkish drones made up of plastics or composites, which the Operation Sindoor witnessed. In light of this, India’s Emergency Procurement-6 scheme is looking to procure proven technologies, including soft-kill systems that jam, spoof or stall drones, or hard-kill systems that include laser-driven and ballistics-driven systems.”

He added that granular drone defence systems catering to a wide variety of drones are ideal as they are suited to the threat in question. Multiple defence companies have demonstrated such technologies in trials, and going forward, the army and the air force will look to procure multiple such platforms that implement counter-UAS technologies of various kinds. “At the same time, it is important to note that India will need to have a unified command and control platform, possibly AI-assisted, to operate these technologies ranging from non-kinetic means to kinetic options, and also evaluate if a certain platform is compatible to work with the different defence systems already implemented across various regional commands.”

The second and third officials cited above both agreed that another concern is for Indian firms to combat-prove drone defence technologies. “”Unless a technology is proven in field, it is difficult for the ambit of emergency procurement to justify signing a contract. There is scope to extend a contract outside of emergency procurement if one particular technology works out better than the other, but from the perspective of on-field efficacy, Israel remains an undisputed leader globally,” the third official added.