Defence Procurement Manual 2025

What it does

The Manual is the Ministry of Defence's procedure for revenue procurement. It tells a buying unit how to plan a purchase, invite offers, evaluate them, award a contract and manage it to delivery, and it fixes the standard conditions of contract that a supplier signs. It is an administrative instrument, not a statute, and it is issued under the power to lay down procurement procedure in the General Financial Rules, 2017, which the Manual's own paragraph 1.1.2 cites as Rule 142.

The Raksha Mantri approved it on 14 September 2025 and released it on 23 October 2025. It came into force on 1 November 2025 and replaced the Defence Procurement Manual 2009, which had governed revenue procurement since 1 April 2009.

Who it binds

Paragraph 1.2.1 sets the scope. The Manual applies to the wings of the Ministry, the Defence Services, the Indian Coast Guard and the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry, down to units at every level. It covers goods and services classified as revenue expenditure, other than entitled rations, works and land.

A supplier is bound by agreement rather than by the Manual directly: the standard conditions in the Manual become the terms of the contract when the request for proposal and the contract incorporate them. Paragraph 6.13.1 adds that no deviation from, or deletion of, a standard condition of contract is allowed, and that a deviation pressed by the seller needs the approval of the Raksha Mantri after a legal opinion.

Two groups are outside it. A capital acquisition falls outside the Manual, except medical equipment bought under the capital budget head, which paragraph 1.2.2(a) brings in. The Defence Research and Development Organisation and the Defence Public Sector Undertakings continue to follow their own procurement procedures.

What has changed, and when

The Manual of 2025 replaced the Manual of 2009 as amended, with effect from 1 November 2025. The change is not applied to every contract at once. Paragraph 1.1.3 says that ongoing cases in which a request for proposal has already been issued may continue to be regulated by the 2009 Manual as amended. The release of 23 October 2025 is more specific. A request for proposal issued after 1 November 2025 is governed by the 2025 Manual, one issued up to 31 October 2025 stays under the 2009 Manual as amended up to date, and one issued earlier but retracted and reissued on or after 1 November 2025 moves to the 2025 Manual.

What turns on it in practice

The date of the request for proposal decides which clause a supplier signs, and that is the first thing to establish when advising on a defence supply contract. The second is the liquidated damages clause, which the firm's note on contracts and procurement treats in detail.

Under paragraph 6.15 of the Manual, liquidated damages are pre-estimated and mutually agreed compensation for late delivery, and no actual loss need be established. The general rule in paragraph 6.15.2(a) allows recovery of 0.5 per cent of the price of what was not delivered in time for each week or part of a week, up to a ceiling of 5 per cent. The ceiling rises to 10 per cent only in a case of inordinate delay, which paragraph 6.15.2(c) defines as inexcusable delay of more than one-fourth of the total delivery period. The note records that this halves the cap that applied before, which is the change a supplier's contract manager should price. The price on which the percentage runs includes GST, freight and variations such as price variation and exchange rate variation.

For a development contract for an indigenised item the clause is waived until the prototype is developed and, where it is included at all afterwards, runs at a lower weekly rate. Because the conditions cannot be negotiated, the room for a supplier lies in the delivery schedule and the extensions it can establish for buyer delay or force majeure, not in the clause itself.