RTI activist Tej Pratap Singh on Thursday sought action against IdeaForge after two of its partner companies that had participated in the Indian Army’s bids for procurement of overall 80 mini-surveillance drones were disqualified for fielding IdeaForge UAVs consisting of Chinese parts – which, he said, are a threat to national security.
businessline had exposed the use of Chinese components in the indigenously-manufactured UAVs supplied to the armed forces in an exclusive story on August 28, 2024, which had forced the Army to cancel a logistic drone contract.
The Army, later in response to this story, said that they are working on a mechanism to avoid such occurrences in future. It seems, however, that white labelling of drones with Chinese components and selling them as Make in India continues.
In the latest episode, both Rohal Technologies Pvt Ltd and Deftech & GreenIndia Pvt Ltd had pitched IdeaForge’s Q6 V2 D&N UAVs for two separate tenders – GEM/2024/B/5044136 and GEM/2024/B/5044183 – floated by the Government e Marketplace (GeM) in July and August of 2024, respectively, for 40 mini surveillance drones, each. These UAVs could operate during the day as well as night.
IdeaForge, however, did not participate in the bidding process for drones meant for Indian Army’s Northern Command, which guards the borders with China and Pakistan.
‘Not a first’
During the technical evaluation of the bids, the GeM disqualified both firms for violating contract provisions by pitching non-Make in India drones.
“Products with items made in China, hence non-complaint” and “equipment made in China was found during TEC in the product”, the GeM had commented in technical evaluations, based on which IdeaForge’s partners were disqualified from both tenders.
The results of the bids were declared in February, 2025.
RTI activist Singh said at a press conference here that he has filed complaints with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Union Commerce Ministry seeking action against IdeaForge, as using Chinese parts in drones poses threat to national security. Singh said he is awaiting a response.
The activist also alleged that these drones were supplied to armed forces in the past, too.
Firm’s response
Responding to the allegations, IdeaForge said, “It has come to our attention that misleading information has been circulated regarding the disqualification of our partners in a tender. We would like to clarify that the issue was related to non-critical components manufactured by a Swiss OEM, with a country of origin in China.”
The private drone company added, “As these were trials of an opportunity, they may have asked our partners to fix this for the next iteration. We fail to see how this can be construed as a national security concern. The company has a long-standing track record of participating in such tenders and has successfully won multiple tenders in the past, adhering strictly to all compliance norms.”
The activist, however, alleged that IdeaForge drones were hacked earlier by Pakistan and China.
Singh said that despite multiple complaints and court proceedings pending against them, “authorities have not taken strict action to curb the supply of IdeaForge drones in the Indian market..”
On that, the company said, “The Indian Army has already clarified that the issue was a technical glitch and not a cyber breach. Known phenomena such as cross-border jamming should not be misrepresented as hacking incidents.”
We hope this clarification helps dispel any misinformation and brings focus back to the merits and integrity of the ongoing procurement process, IdeaForge observed.
Published on April 17, 2025