Defence Ministry Signs Rs 4,106 Crore GSAT-7C, Varunastra Deals

India's defence buying machinery cleared two big orders on 15 October 2026, when the Ministry of Defence put its signature on contracts adding up to roughly Rs 4,106 crore. One of them buys the Indian Air Force a satellite of its own; the other arms the Indian Navy with heavy weight torpedoes built in India.

GSAT-7C for the Air Force

The larger of the two, worth Rs 2,563 crore, covers the GSAT-7C communication satellite and was concluded with New Space India Limited of Bengaluru. The spacecraft has been designed, developed and manufactured within the country. Once working, it will give Air Force platforms a channel of their own that is protected, hard to disrupt and continuous, so that aircraft, ground stations and commanders stay linked wherever they operate. That, the ministry said, sharpens the operational effectiveness of the service.

Varunastra torpedoes for the Navy

The second contract, valued at Rs 1,543 crore, was signed with Bharat Dynamics Limited, Hyderabad, for the Varunastra heavy weight torpedo. Varunastra is fired from a warship and hunts submarines. It was developed by the Naval Science and Technological Laboratory, and the manoeuvring package it carries lets it chase and strike hostile submarines far from the launching ship, which lifts the fleet's anti-submarine warfare punch.

Where the papers were exchanged

Both contracts were signed in New Delhi in the presence of Shri A. Anbarasu, Additional Secretary and Director General (Acquisition) in the Department of Defence. The ministry placed the two purchases squarely inside the government's Aatmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India goals, because the satellite and the torpedo alike come from Indian design houses and Indian production lines instead of from a foreign seller. Both, it added, carry forward home-grown manufacturing in critical technologies.

Why an aspirant should note it

Questions on defence procurement usually turn on three details: the rupee value, the supplier and the service that gains. Here the pairing is easy to hold in memory, because one deal joins a space company to the Air Force and the other joins a missile and torpedo maker to the Navy.