Dhaksha drone plant.
New Delhi: Dhaksha Unmanned Systems, the Chennai-based drone maker majority-owned by fertiliser and agrochemical group Coromandel International, on Wednesday opened a new manufacturing facility at Aymicheri in Kancheepuram district, about 75 kilometres southwest of Chennai, as it looks to widen its footprint across agricultural, defence and enterprise drone segments.
The plant was formally opened by the executive chairman of Coromandel International, Arun Alagappan, at an event that also saw the unveiling of two new agricultural drone models.
The company said the facility would let it take on larger and more complex programmes across its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) portfolio while building up indigenization of critical drone components and subsystems – an increasingly pressing requirement for Indian manufacturers as the government tightens rules on imported drone technology.
At the launch, Dhaksha introduced the DH Agrigator E10 Prime and the DH Agrigator E10 Eco, both built with locally sourced components. The E10 Prime has been developed in line with the government’s Namo Drone Didi programme, a central scheme launched in 2023 that supplies subsidized drones and pilot training to women’s self-help groups for crop-spraying work, with an outlay of ₹1,261 crore aimed at covering 15,000 groups by 2025-26.
The E10 Eco, meanwhile, is pitched as a lower-cost option intended to widen access to drone-based spraying services for small and marginal farmers and rural entrepreneurs who may not qualify for or afford the subsidized scheme.
Beyond agriculture, the company said the new site would also serve its defence business, which includes surveillance and logistics applications, through a dedicated production line.
Dhaksha is separately expanding its network of service centres and supplier relationships, and describes the Kancheepuram facility as a shared platform where outside technology partners can work alongside its own engineering teams under one roof – a model increasingly common among Indian defence manufacturers trying to shorten development cycles for niche subsystems such as sensors, batteries and flight-control software.
The director of Dhaksha Unmanned Systems, who is also the managing director and chief executive officer of Coromandel International, S. Sankarasubramanian, said the company viewed UAVs as central to India's shift towards a more productive and technology-driven economy, adding that field feedback from farmers was increasingly shaping product development.
The move comes against the backdrop of a wider push to build domestic drone manufacturing since New Delhi introduced the Drone Rules, 2021, a production-linked incentive scheme for drones and components the same year, and a 2022 restriction on importing foreign-made drones except for defence, security and research purposes.
Tamil Nadu has separately positioned itself as an aerospace and defence manufacturing hub, with its Defence Industrial Corridor – anchored around Chennai, Hosur, Salem, Coimbatore and Tiruchirappalli – having drawn over ₹23,000 crore in committed investment, and a state policy targeting ₹75,000 crore and about 100,000 jobs in the sector by 2032.
Kancheepuram district itself already hosts a dense automotive and electronics manufacturing belt around Oragadam and Sriperumbudur, giving Dhaksha access to an established component-supply base as it scales up.
