India’s Drone Battery Ecosystem

India is building a world-class drone industry on an imported energy core. Of every ₹100 of value an Indian drone OEM earns, more than ₹50 leaves the country for a concentrated, overwhelmingly Chinese, battery supply chain; India scores just 30/100 on the Drone Battery Sovereignty Index. The report maps the dependency layer by layer, quantifies the ~US$10.8bn opportunity by 2030, and shows why the fastest route to value is the intelligent layer — BMS, analytics, certification and recycling — where capture jumps from ~5% to 35–40% without first solving cell manufacturing. Two proprietary frameworks (the DBSI and the five-level Readiness Model), thirty-plus figures, a ten-chart CXO dashboard, four 2035 scenarios, six appendices and a companion Excel data pack.