Who Controls India’s Drones?

India assembles drones it cannot fully control. Official data placed before the Lok Sabha in April 2025 record 39% of flight controllers in DGCA-certified small drones as Chinese-sourced; across the whole fleet the effective figure is 70–80%, and the processors and MEMS inertial sensors at the base of the stack are roughly 100% imported. This report maps that control-stack dependency layer by layer and scores it on four proprietary frameworks — the Drone Autonomy Value Chain, the Strategic Vulnerability Index, the Import Vulnerability Matrix and a five-level Autonomy Maturity Model. It sizes the domestic substitution opportunity the new INR 2,000 crore PLI scheme unlocks (USD 500 million+ a year in addressable value), names the winners and losers across four policy levers (PLI, the Army 515 model, BVLOS and procurement preference), and sets out five costed recommendations and a selective-sovereignty path to 2035. Seventeen chapters, thirty-five figures, the Strategic Vulnerability Index and the Drone Autonomy Opportunity Map.