Officials of Sagar Defence with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu (Photo: SDEPL)
New Delhi: Sagar Defence Engineering signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Andhra Pradesh on May 15 for the allotment of approximately 400 acres of land to set up a defence manufacturing facility in the state.
The signing took place at an official ceremony attended by the union defence minister, Rajnath Singh, and the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Nara Chandrababu Naidu.
The proposed plant is intended to produce advanced defence systems for strategic and national-security applications.
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SDEPL, which specializes in unmanned and autonomous systems across maritime, aerial, and land domains, said the facility would anchor its push into full-spectrum defence manufacturing, a segment that now includes explosives, following the company’s recent receipt of an industrial licence from the central government for that purpose.
The MoU was signed on behalf of SDEPL by its founder and chairman and managing director, Captain Nikunj Parashar, and the head of research and development, Saurabh Patil. No financial terms were disclosed.
Andhra Pradesh has been actively courting defence and aerospace investment since the state’s bifurcation in 2014, and the administration of Chandrababu Naidu, who returned to power in 2024, has continued that push as part of a broader industrial revival strategy centred on the new capital region around Amaravati.
The state already hosts parts of the defence corridor that the central government announced in 2018, which spans Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and is meant to catalyze private investment in defence production.
SDEPL was founded in 2015 by Parashar, Mridul Babbar, Lakshay Dang, Patil, and Ankit Kumar. The company’s principal product line is built around GENISYS, a self-learning command-and-control module for navigation that the company describes as platform-agnostic, meaning it can be fitted to existing vessels or platforms and configured for remote, semi-autonomous, or fully autonomous operation. The company says its technologies have been deployed with the Indian Navy.
The company framed the Andhra Pradesh deal as a step toward building “next-generation strategic capabilities” under the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) policy, which seeks to reduce dependence on imported defence equipment by nurturing domestic manufacturers.
India remains one of the world’s largest importers of defence hardware, and successive governments have set targets to raise the share of domestic procurement.
SDEPL said the facility would create “substantial” employment and strengthen regional industrial infrastructure, though it gave no specific numbers for jobs, investment outlay, or a timeline for when construction or production might begin.
The explosives licence obtained by the company ahead of the MoU is a significant regulatory milestone.
Manufacturing explosives in India requires clearances under the Explosives Act and related rules administered by the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation, and such licences are not routinely issued to private firms.
The licence signals that SDEPL intends to move beyond electronics and software-driven autonomy systems into kinetic munitions.
