The Chief Minister's Office of Maharashtra announced on Saturday, 23 May 2026 that Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis jointly inaugurated a Missile Complex and an Artillery Shell Production Line at a facility of the Nibe Group in Shirdi, Maharashtra, with the production line designed to manufacture 5 lakh artillery shells per annum.

Context

The inauguration marks a significant milestone in India's push to build domestic capacity for critical ammunition and missile systems. Shirdi, located in Ahmednagar district, has emerged as a site for private-sector defence infrastructure under Maharashtra's broader industrial policy. The Nibe Group, an Indian company active in defence and aerospace component manufacturing, is the host entity for this new complex.

The event was live-streamed, with the Chief Minister's Office sharing the broadcast directly on social media, signalling the political and strategic importance attached to the inauguration.

Policy Backdrop

The facility is a direct product of India's Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, launched in 2020, which set out to reduce the country's dependence on imported defence equipment and ammunition. The Defence Production and Export Promotion Policy 2020 established targets for indigenous manufacturing of missiles and artillery shells, while successive Positive Indigenisation Lists issued from 2021 onward banned imports of specified categories of ammunition to compel domestic sourcing.

Maharashtra has positioned itself as a preferred destination for such investments through a state-level defence policy framework dating to 2018, offering incentives to private firms setting up ammunition and missile production units. The Nibe Group's Shirdi complex is among the most visible outcomes of that framework.

The Ministry of Defence, under Rajnath Singh since 2019, has consistently expanded private-sector participation in defence production, viewing it as essential to achieving strategic autonomy. Artillery shell production capacity has been a particular focus after global supply disruptions exposed vulnerabilities in import-dependent munitions pipelines.

Stakeholders and Impact

The Indian Armed Forces stand to benefit most directly, with a domestic source for 5 lakh artillery shells per year reducing reliance on foreign suppliers for a high-consumption category of munitions. For Maharashtra's manufacturing sector, the complex represents an addition to the state's growing defence industrial base, creating skilled employment and supply-chain linkages.

Private defence firms across India are watching the Nibe Group's model closely, as it demonstrates the viability of end-to-end missile and ammunition production outside the traditional public-sector ordnance factory network. The inauguration by two senior political figures — a Union Cabinet minister and a sitting Chief Minister — underscores the centre-state alignment that has made such projects possible.

What's Next

The commissioning of the production line will now move into a ramp-up phase to reach its stated annual capacity. Further state-level memoranda of understanding for defence manufacturing clusters in Maharashtra are expected as the state looks to consolidate its position in the sector. At the national level, updates to indigenisation targets in the annual defence budget and any expansion of the Positive Indigenisation List will determine the pace at which facilities like this one scale their output.

With India's defence export ambitions also growing, a facility producing both missiles and artillery shells at scale could eventually look beyond domestic supply to international markets — a trajectory the government has explicitly encouraged under its export promotion policy.