Defence Procurement Manual 2009

What it does

The Manual is a set of executive instructions, not a statute. It laid down how the Ministry of Defence and the Services buy goods and services on the revenue account: how a requirement is framed, how a request for proposal is issued, how bids are evaluated and contracts awarded, and what conditions a supplier signs. It governed revenue procurement from 1 April 2009.

Its subject is revenue procurement, which is the buying of stores, spares and services for running the forces. Capital acquisition, which is the buying of major platforms and weapon systems, is under a separate procedure, the Defence Acquisition Procedure, and not under this Manual.

Who it binds

The wings of the Ministry, the Defence Services and the other organisations that follow it, down to the unit that raises a requirement. It binds those purchasing bodies, and it reaches a supplier only through the contract the supplier signs, whose conditions are taken from the Manual.

What moved out of it

The 2009 Manual was replaced by the Defence Procurement Manual 2025, which came into force on 1 November 2025. The Raksha Mantri approved the new Manual on 14 September 2025 and released it on 23 October 2025, and it is laid down in terms of Rule 142 of the General Financial Rules, 2017.

The change is not clean on one date, and the transition decides which text applies. A request for proposal issued up to 31 October 2025 stays under the 2009 Manual as amended up to date. One issued on or after 1 November 2025 is governed by the 2025 Manual. A request issued earlier but retracted and reissued on or after 1 November 2025 moves to the 2025 Manual.

What has changed, and when

The site's note on the 2025 Manual describes one change in particular, the liquidated damages clause for late delivery. The rate remains 0.5 per cent of the price for each week, but the ceiling is now 5 per cent, rising to 10 per cent only where the inexcusable delay is more than one fourth of the total delivery period. On a development contract for an indigenised item the clause is waived until the prototype is developed and, if included afterwards, runs at 0.1 per cent a week. The note presents this as a halving of the cap, so the older text was more severe on the supplier.

The 2025 Manual also states that no deviation from a standard condition of contract is allowed without approval at the level of the Raksha Mantri, which narrows the room that suppliers had to negotiate individual clauses.

What turns on it in practice

For a supplier to the Ministry the first question is the date of the request for proposal. That single date decides which cap on liquidated damages the supplier signs and which standard conditions bind it, and a contract on a long delivery schedule can carry the 2009 terms for years after the new Manual took effect.

The second question is whether the procurement is revenue or capital. A supply that looks like defence equipment may still be a capital acquisition under a different procedure, and the Manual then does not apply. The third is which entity is buying, since the Defence Research and Development Organisation and the defence public sector undertakings follow their own procurement procedures.

For contracts and procurement work, the pending matters under the 2009 text are where a delay claim or a liquidated damages deduction will be argued: the clause to be read is the one in the contract signed, which is the 2009 clause for requests issued before 1 November 2025.