A defence startup can raise capital, hire engineers and build a prototype shell, fuze or rocket motor. What it cannot do is fire it.
Proving a weapon requires square kilometres of hazard-cleared land, chronographs, tracking radar, high-speed cameras, pressure gauges and a safety template governing both the ground danger area and the airspace above it. No private firm can assemble that, and if one did it would stand idle for most of the year. So the state owns every proof range in the country — which means the real barrier to entry in defence manufacturing is not money. It is a booking.
On 7 October 2026 the Raksha Mantri, Shri Rajnath Singh, approved a revised Standard Operating Procedure for Utilisation of MoD Proof Ranges, Field Firing Ranges and Test Facilities by Indian Defence Industry.
What the SOP does
| Provision | Content |
|---|---|
| Fee waiver | Proof and testing charges waived for iDEX, TDF, Make and other developmental projects of the Ministry |
| Catalogue | The SOP lists the proof ranges, field firing ranges and laboratory test facilities held by DRDO, Government Quality Assurance agencies and the three Services |
| Charges procedure | Method of calculation and payment of proof and testing charges incorporated, with formats, simplifying documentation |
| Dispute resolution | The existing Arbitration provision replaced with a Conciliation Agreement Clause |
| Reserved capacity | A three-day slot per quarter at proof ranges for proof firing of government-sponsored developmental projects — iDEX, TDF, Make and others — and projects taken up on the industry's own initiative |
The only clause that changes outcomes
Four of those five provisions are documentation reform. Useful, overdue, and not binding on anything.
The reserved three-day quarterly slot is different, and it is the provision to remember.
A proof range's calendar is dominated by Service user trials and DRDO programmes, and those have operational deadlines behind them. In that environment, a policy that says a range is available to industry "when free" means available never, because there is always a higher-priority trial. Reserving capacity converts a permission into a schedulable date, which is the difference between a right and a rhetorical right.
The extension matters even more than the reservation. The slot covers not only government-sponsored projects but projects undertaken on the industry's own initiative — a firm developing something nobody commissioned. That is where genuinely new ideas come from, and it has historically been the category with no standing at all, because there was no sponsoring agency to request range time on its behalf.
Now the honest arithmetic. Three days a quarter is twelve days a year, shared across the whole reserved category and every firm in it. That is a beachhead rather than a solution. It is also precisely the sort of provision that should be reviewed against utilisation data after a year: if the twelve days fill in a week of bidding, the number is wrong, and the Ministry will know.
The fee waiver, and the three schemes behind it
Proof firing is genuinely expensive. The cost is ammunition, range time, instrumentation, firing crews and safety staff, and for a series of trials it compounds. For a startup on a modest grant, one trial campaign can consume a material share of the whole award.
The waiver applies to three channels worth distinguishing:
- iDEX — Innovations for Defence Excellence, the startup and MSME innovation route, executed through the Defence Innovation Organisation with SPARK grants
- TDF — the Technology Development Fund, administered by DRDO to fund Indian industry developing defence technology
- Make — the development categories of the Defence Acquisition Procedure: Make-I, government-funded, and Make-II, industry-funded against an assured requirement
Waiving proof charges for these raises the effective value of a grant without increasing the grant. It is a well-targeted subsidy for exactly that reason — it can only be consumed by a firm that already has something worth testing, so it cannot be absorbed by firms that are merely funded. The same design thinking runs through the iDEX route into defence procurement and the delegation of financial powers within DRDO: lower the transaction cost of trying.
Arbitration to conciliation is a real change
This reads like boilerplate and is not.
Arbitration under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, produces a binding award through a formal, adversarial process — counsel, pleadings, a tribunal, fees. Conciliation, under Part III of the same Act, is a facilitated settlement: a conciliator may propose terms of settlement, the parties accept or decline, and a settlement agreement so reached has the same status and effect as an arbitral award on agreed terms.
Consider a small firm disputing range charges, or liability for a damaged target, with the Ministry of Defence. Arbitration is a remedy that exists on paper and is unaffordable in practice — the cost of pursuing it can exceed the amount in dispute, which means in effect no remedy at all. Conciliation is usable by a firm with no litigation budget.
Replacing the first with the second is an ease-of-doing-business reform with actual content, and it is the detail that separates an informed answer from a summary of the headline.
Why a catalogue is itself a reform
The SOP lists the facilities available with DRDO, the Government Quality Assurance agencies and the three Services. That sounds administrative; it removes a real obstacle.
India's test infrastructure sits with three quite different kinds of owner — a research organisation with its own establishments, the quality-assurance directorates that inspect and accept stores, and three Services each operating their own field firing ranges. A firm with a product to prove previously had to discover what existed and whom to approach, across three organisational cultures with no common entry point. A published list converts a search into a process.
It also connects to the certification chain downstream. Proof and test data is the evidence on which the quality-assurance directorates inspect and the military airworthiness authorities certify. Without range access there is no data; without data there is no certification; and without certification there is no order. Range access is the first link, and it has been the weakest.
The scheme this complements
The revised SOP should be learnt as one half of a pair.
The Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS), launched on 8 May 2020 with an outlay of ₹400 crore over five years, funds the creation of 6 to 8 greenfield test facilities in partnership with private industry. Projects receive up to 75% government funding as Grant-in-Aid, with the remaining 25% borne by a Special Purpose Vehicle whose constituents are Indian private entities and State governments, and the facilities are located mainly in the Defence Industrial Corridors. Seven facilities have been approved — four in Tamil Nadu and three in Uttar Pradesh — covering unmanned aerial systems, electronic warfare, electro-optics, communications, mechanical and materials, and ammunition testing.
The logic of DTIS is that testing infrastructure is capital-intensive and needs continuous upgrading, so it is not viable for an individual firm to build in-house — hence a common facility under private operation with government assistance.
So: DTIS creates new shared facilities with private capital. The revised SOP opens the existing government ones.
And note what DTIS cannot do. An SPV can build a vibration table, an environmental chamber or an electromagnetic-interference test cell. It cannot build a proof range, because land on that scale, a ground danger area and an airspace safety template are not things a special purpose vehicle can assemble. For live firing there is no private alternative and there is not going to be one — which is exactly why an access SOP, and a reserved slot inside it, is the operative instrument for that category of testing. The same reasoning explains why reforms on the output side, such as the open general export licence changes, only bite once a firm can get its product proved in the first place.
🔑 Revision block
- Decision, 7 October 2026: Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh approved a revised Standard Operating Procedure for Utilisation of MoD Proof Ranges, Field Firing Ranges and Test Facilities by Indian Defence Industry.
- Five provisions: (1) proof and testing charges waived for iDEX, TDF, Make and other MoD developmental projects; (2) the SOP lists facilities held by DRDO, Government Quality Assurance agencies and the three Services; (3) calculation and payment procedure for charges incorporated, with formats; (4) Arbitration replaced by a Conciliation Agreement Clause; (5) a three-day slot per quarter reserved at proof ranges.
- The operative clause: the reserved slot covers government-sponsored projects and projects on the industry's own initiative. A range's calendar is dominated by Service user trials and DRDO programmes, so "available when free" means never — reserving capacity converts a permission into a date.
- Its limit: three days a quarter is 12 days a year for the entire reserved category.
- Why a proof range cannot be private: square kilometres of hazard-cleared land, a ground danger area, an airspace safety template, chronographs, tracking radar, high-speed cameras and pressure instrumentation — beyond any single firm, and idle most of the year.
- The three waiver channels: iDEX (Innovations for Defence Excellence — startups and MSMEs, executed via the Defence Innovation Organisation, SPARK grants); TDF (Technology Development Fund, DRDO-administered, funds Indian industry); Make (Make-I government-funded, Make-II industry-funded, under the Defence Acquisition Procedure).
- Why the waiver is well targeted: it raises the effective value of a grant without increasing the grant, and can only be used by a firm that already has something to test.
- Arbitration vs conciliation: arbitration under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, gives a binding award through an adversarial, expensive process. Conciliation, under Part III of the same Act, is a facilitated settlement, and a settlement agreement has the same status and effect as an arbitral award on agreed terms — a remedy a small firm can actually afford.
- Why the catalogue matters: facilities sit with three different kinds of owner, with no common entry point, so a published list converts a search into a process.
- The chain downstream: proof and test data → inspection by quality-assurance directorates → military airworthiness certification → order. Range access is the first link.
- Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS): launched 8 May 2020, ₹400 crore, 5 years, 6–8 greenfield facilities. Up to 75% Grant-in-Aid, remaining 25% from an SPV of Indian private entities and State governments, mainly in Defence Industrial Corridors. 7 approved — 4 in Tamil Nadu, 3 in Uttar Pradesh — in UAS, electronic warfare, electro-optics, communications, mechanical and materials, and ammunition.
- Learn them as a pair: DTIS builds new shared facilities with private capital; the revised SOP opens the existing government ranges. An SPV can build a vibration table or an EMI cell; it cannot build a proof range.
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. Under the revised SOP, proof and testing charges have been waived for projects under: (a) The Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme only (b) iDEX, TDF, Make and other MoD developmental projects (c) Foreign-collaboration projects under offsets (d) Ordnance factory production orders
→ (b) Three development channels plus other MoD developmental projects. DTIS is a separate instrument — it funds new facilities rather than waiving charges at existing ones.
Q2. The provision in the revised SOP most likely to change outcomes in practice is: (a) The reservation of a three-day slot per quarter at proof ranges (b) The inclusion of prescribed formats (c) The listing of available facilities (d) The procedure for calculating charges
→ (a) The others reduce friction; only reserved capacity creates a date. On a calendar dominated by Service user trials, "available when free" is not availability.
Q3. The reserved quarterly slot is available for: (a) Government-sponsored developmental projects only (b) Export orders awaiting pre-shipment inspection (c) Government-sponsored projects and projects on the industry's own initiative (d) DRDO laboratories only
→ (c) The extension to own-initiative projects is the significant part, since such projects previously had no sponsoring agency to request range time for them.
Q4. In the revised SOP, the provision for Arbitration has been replaced by: (a) Reference to the Armed Forces Tribunal (b) A mandatory recourse to writ jurisdiction (c) An expert determination clause (d) A Conciliation Agreement Clause
→ (d) Conciliation under Part III of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, is a facilitated settlement whose agreement carries the status of an arbitral award on agreed terms — affordable in a way arbitration is not.
Q5. The Technology Development Fund (TDF) is administered by: (a) DRDO (b) The Department of Defence Production (c) The Defence Innovation Organisation (d) The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
→ (a) DRDO administers TDF to fund Indian industry developing defence technology. The Defence Innovation Organisation is the executing agency for iDEX.
Q6. Under the Defence Acquisition Procedure, Make-I and Make-II are distinguished principally by: (a) The size of the order (b) Whether development is government-funded or industry-funded (c) Whether the vendor is a DPSU or a private firm (d) Whether the equipment is for the Army or the Navy
→ (b) Make-I is government-funded development; Make-II is funded by industry against an assured requirement.
Q7. The Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme provides government funding of up to: (a) 100% of project cost as Grant-in-Aid (b) 50% as a soft loan (c) 75% as Grant-in-Aid, with 25% borne by an SPV (d) 25% as equity in the facility
→ (c) The SPV comprises Indian private entities and State governments, and the facilities are located mainly in the Defence Industrial Corridors.
Q8. Under DTIS, the testing facilities approved so far are located in: (a) Maharashtra and Karnataka (b) Gujarat and Rajasthan (c) Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (d) Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh
→ (d) Seven facilities — four in Tamil Nadu and three in Uttar Pradesh — which are the two States hosting the Defence Industrial Corridors.
Q9. A Special Purpose Vehicle under DTIS could not realistically establish which of the following? (a) An electromagnetic interference test cell (b) An environmental test chamber (c) A vibration test facility (d) A proof range for live firing
→ (d) Land on that scale, a ground danger area and an airspace safety template are not assets an SPV can assemble — which is precisely why an access SOP is the operative instrument for live firing.
Q10. The strongest reason range access rather than capital is the binding constraint on new entrants in defence manufacturing is that: (a) Private firms are prohibited from manufacturing ammunition (b) Proof and test data is the evidence on which inspection, certification and orders all depend (c) Banks do not lend to defence startups (d) Export licences require foreign certification
→ (b) No range access means no data; no data means no certification; no certification means no order. Capital can be raised; a safety template cannot.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Defence industrial policy is examined in four recognisable ways, and the first is scheme-to-administrator.
The first is scheme-to-body mapping. iDEX with the Defence Innovation Organisation and SPARK; TDF with DRDO; Make-I and Make-II with the Defence Acquisition Procedure; DTIS with the Defence Industrial Corridors and an SPV. Four instruments, four homes, and the paper will cross one pair.
The second is the DTIS numbers. ₹400 crore, 2020, five years, 6–8 facilities, 75:25 funding, seven approved across two States. A compact set that travels together.
The third is the legal distinction. Arbitration gives a binding award through an adversarial process; conciliation produces a settlement agreement with the effect of an award on agreed terms. Both sit in the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, and confusing them is the commonest error in questions on dispute resolution in government contracts.
The fourth, and the one that makes a good written answer, is the constraint argument. Explaining why access to test infrastructure — not finance, not technology, not demand — is what limits new entrants, and why that constraint cannot be relieved by private investment, demonstrates that you understand defence industrialisation rather than its vocabulary.
Preparing for NDA? With every defence reform, find the clause that creates an obligation rather than an intention. A waiver lowers cost, a format saves paper, but only reserved capacity puts a firm on a range on a date. Build the base with our NDA study material, follow the daily NDA current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Col D.N. Sharma — Faculty, Defence Studies, at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.