NEW DELHI: The civil aviation ministry proposes to offer as much as ?1,800 crore as incentives to manufacture drones in India, increase adoption across defence and civilian sectors and reduce reliance on component imports from China.

The tentatively titled Mission Drone Shakti is expected to set aside ?1,600 crore-1,800 crore over five years to fund and support research and development and local manufacturing of components including critical parts and incentivize drone sales and adoption, an official aware of the discussions said.

The plan is to introduce the scheme in FY27, targeting private Indian companies. The details are being finalized and after the finance ministry’s approval, it will be presented for the consideration of the Cabinet.

The proposed Mission Drone Shakti mirrors India’s production-linked incentive schemes across 14 sectors such as electronics, textiles, pharmaceuticals and automobiles, which had a cumulative outlay of ?1.97 trillion. The scheme will offer financial incentives tied directly to measurable outcomes such as domestic value addition and incremental sales.

Initially, ?500 crore-600 crore will be allocated for research and development, while the remaining ?1,000 crore-1,200 crore will be split between manufacturing support for critical components such as propellers, motors and airframes, and sales-linked incentives, documents reviewed by Mint showed.

The benefits will be calculated on the basis of domestic value addition. The financial incentive payable is likely to be a portion of this value addition. A minimum value addition will be set for beneficiary companies to be eligible, the official added.