Suryastra rocket launcher: Nibe refutes screwdriver giri claim, cites Army order and trials

Nibe Limited has defended its Suryastra rocket launcher against allegations that it is simply imported hardware assembled in India. In a stock exchange filing dated June 16, the Pune-based company asserted that the launcher complies with all specifications laid down by the Indian Army and maintained that critics have failed to recognise the engineering effort behind the system.

The trigger was an article carried by Bharat Shakti a day earlier, built around what it called the mockery of Aatmanirbhar Bharat in defence. It described the Suryastra as a rebadged Israeli platform and used the term screwdriver giri, shorthand in Indian defence circles for assembling foreign kits with thin local value addition.

Nibe disagrees, and said so on the record.

What the company told the exchanges

The note went to BSE and the National Stock Exchange under Regulation 30 of the SEBI listing rules, the clause that obliges a listed firm to disclose material developments. Nibe framed it as a refutation of misleading allegations, saying the article ignored technical data, misread procurement rules and slighted the engineers and private firms now building for the armed forces.

One line set the tone. Reducing a 300 km deep strike asset to simple assembly, the company said, was a direct insult to Indian engineers and to the operational needs of the forces.

Nibe also asked journalists to verify technical and procurement claims through formal channels before publishing. India's wider indigenisation debate has seen similar fights lately, among them the indigeneity challenge over SMPP's kamikaze drone after Belarus paperwork surfaced.

Suryastra rocket launcher and the indigenisation question

The heart of the row is provenance. The Suryastra is built on the Precise and Universal Launching System, the multi calibre rocket platform from Elbit Systems of Israel, under a technology collaboration agreement. Critics read that as assembly. Nibe reads it as the first phase of a longer programme.

The company says the early architecture leans on that partnership, signed in 2025, but that production is rooted in domestic development. It points to a newly inaugurated 200 acre defence manufacturing complex at Shirdi in Maharashtra, set up to handle core engineering, indigenous structural integration, a 155mm ammunition line and localisation of rocket components. The aim, in Nibe's telling, is a permanent industrial base, not a single assembly shed.

That distinction carries weight for the firms chasing the Aatmanirbhar Bharat tag, where genuine design ownership and licence built imports often sit uncomfortably close. The Defence Minister gave the Suryastra pride of place when he opened the Shirdi plant. The same co-production logic runs through other big programmes, including the Make in India push attached to the 114 Rafale deal.

The procurement route

Nibe's second defence concerns how the order was placed. The Army signed the contract, worth about Rs 293 crore, in January 2026 under the Emergency Procurement framework cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council. Those provisions exist to close urgent capability gaps at the borders without the usual multi year timelines.

The company says the deal passed the legal, financial and procedural audits that the Emergency Procurement ceiling mandates. The framework sits with the Ministry of Defence, which has leaned on it repeatedly since Operation Sindoor exposed gaps in short notice firepower.

Inside the Chandipur trials

On testing, Nibe pointed to two days of firing at the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in Odisha, on 18 and 19 May 2026. The company reported a circular error probable of 1.5 metres for the 150 km rocket and 2 metres for the 300 km variant, figures that independent reporting at the time carried as well.

A circular error probable of that order, at those ranges, would put Suryastra among the more accurate guided rocket systems in its class. The same range has hosted India's own programmes, among them the recent DRDO long range land attack cruise missile test off the Odisha coast.

Where the dispute settles

Nibe says it is issuing a formal notice to the publication seeking a correction. The Suryastra rocket launcher, on the company's account, is a deep strike asset resting on a transparent contract and a real factory, not a badge job. Bharat Shakti, and the officials it cited, see a familiar pattern of foreign design wearing an Indian label. Both versions are now on the record, one of them filed with the exchanges.