Indigenisation of Special Clothing and Mountaineering Equipment (2021): Strengthening India`s High Altitude Defence Preparedness

Policy Update
Tanisha

Background

Special Clothing and Mountaineering Equipment, SCME, is the Indian Army’s term for the extreme-cold clothing and climbing gear issued to troops deployed in Super High Altitude Areas such as Siachen and the higher reaches of Ladakh, authorised for operating temperatures of minus 20 to 50 degrees Celsius (Ministry of Defence [MoD], 2025). For decades this was one of the Army’s most import-dependent equipment categories: the extreme performance specifications involved pushed procurement toward a small number of foreign specialist vendors, with no comparable domestic manufacturing base.

Two decisions taken within months of each other in 2021 changed that. The Ministry of Defence’s Second Positive Indigenisation List, notified in May 2021, placed SCME items on a fixed indigenisation timeline for the first time. And in October 2021, the government dissolved the four-decade-old Ordnance Factory Board and split its 41 factories into seven wholly government-owned companies, one of them, Troop Comforts Limited, built specifically around troop comfort items including SCME (MoD, 2021). By December 2021, ex-import procurement of SCME was formally embargoed, and the Army describes the indigenisation push since then as pursued “on war footing” (MoD, 2025).

Functioning

Troop Comforts Limited, headquartered in Kanpur and built from four former Ordnance Factory Board units, Ordnance Equipment Factory Kanpur, Ordnance Clothing Factory Shahjahanpur, Ordnance Clothing Factory Avadi and Ordnance Equipment Factory Hazratpur, is the principal domestic manufacturer for SCME, working alongside private vendors and the Army’s own Directorate of Indigenisation (MoD, 2021). Items run across 57 authorised categories, with technical textile development support from defence research laboratories such as DMSRDE, Kanpur.

The clearest public illustration of the programme’s output is the New Coat Combat (Digital Print), introduced in January 2025. Designed with the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi, it is a three-layered garment using technical textiles, and the Army has registered its design and camouflage pattern for Intellectual Property Rights with the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks, making unauthorised use of the uniform a punishable offence (Indian Army, Additional Directorate General of Public Information [ADG PI], 2025).

Table 1. Key milestones in SCME indigenisation, 2021-2025. Compiled from Ministry of Defence (2021, 2025) and Indian Army, Additional Directorate General of Public Information (2025).

Performance

Two official accounts of how close SCME indigenisation now stands were published six weeks apart at the end of 2025, and they do not agree. On 20 November 2025, the Army’s own Additional Directorate General of Public Information stated that 55 of 57 items, 97 percent, had been fully indigenised, with the remaining two under trial and due for completion by 2026 (ADG PI, 2025). The Ministry of Defence’s Year End Review 2025, published on 31 December 2025, put the figure at 53 of 57 items, with four items at an advanced trial stage and the same 2026 completion target (MoD, 2025).

Figure 1. Two official SCME completion counts, six weeks apart. Source: Indian Army, ADG PI (2025); Ministry of Defence (2025).

The discrepancy is small in absolute terms, two items, but it sits inside a programme whose entire public case rests on precise completion counts. Neither release explains the gap or references the other’s figure.

Impact

On either count, SCME indigenisation is close to complete, and that matters operationally in a specific way: it removes a dependency that previously sat on a short list of foreign vendors for equipment with no domestic substitute, in the one equipment category where failure has an immediate, visible cost to troops stationed at extreme altitude. The New Coat Combat’s IP registration adds a dimension beyond import substitution; the Army now owns the design outright, which forecloses the kind of counterfeit or unauthorised-replica problem that has dogged other uniform items.

The institutional reform underpinning this, carving Troop Comforts Limited out of the old Ordnance Factory Board specifically to handle troop comfort items, looks, on the SCME record, like it has done what it was meant to do. That is a useful case study against which the other six OFB-successor companies, several of which cover far more complex platforms, can be judged.

Emerging Issues

• Two official sources report two different completion figures without acknowledging each other. A programme built on the claim of near-total self-reliance loses some of that claim’s force when the Army and the Ministry that oversees it cannot agree, within the same quarter, on how many items remain.
• What specifically is blocking the last few items is not public. Both accounts describe the remainder as “under trial” or at an “advanced trial stage” without naming the items or the technical obstacle, making it impossible to judge from outside whether the 2026 target is a safe one or an optimistic one repeated for the second year running.
• Troop Comforts Limited’s own institutional future is reportedly under review. Media reporting from 2023 described a government-commissioned study into merging TCL and Gliders India Limited, both Kanpur-based, into India Optel Limited and ultimately Bharat Electronics Limited; no government confirmation of that merger’s status has been found in the course of this review. If accurate, a merger part-way through the final SCME push would be a material risk to a programme that has otherwise been one of the more successful instances of the 2021 OFB corporatisation.

Way Forward

• Reconcile the Army’s and the Ministry’s SCME completion figures in the next public update, with a single, dated, agreed count, rather than leaving two different numbers in circulation from the same reporting period.
• Name the specific items still under trial and the technical issue each faces, so independent observers can judge whether the end-2026 target is realistic rather than repeated by default.
• Clarify Troop Comforts Limited’s corporate status before the final SCME items are due, given that any merger or restructuring mid-programme risks disrupting a manufacturing line that is close to a genuine completion milestone.
• Use the SCME programme, once genuinely closed out, as a documented template, fixed embargo date, dedicated manufacturer, named completion target, for indigenising other single-vendor, high-criticality equipment categories still on the Army’s import list.

References

1. Indian Army, Additional Directorate General of Public Information. (2025, November 20). 97% Special Clothing, Mountaineering Equipment indigenised: Indian Army [Official statement]. Integrated Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence (Army), Government of India.
2. Ministry of Defence. (2021, October 15). Seven new defence companies, carved out of OFB, dedicated to the Nation on the occasion of Vijayadashami [Press release]. Press Information Bureau, Government of India. https://www.pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1764148 
3. Ministry of Defence. (2025, December 31). Year end review 2025 [Press release]. Press Information Bureau, Government of India. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2210154 

About the Contributor

Tanisha is a Political Science graduate (BA Hons, University of Delhi; MA, IGNOU), currently pursuing a Diploma in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding, with research interests spanning international relations, environmental governance, and gender studies. She is keen to build a career in policy research.

Acknowledgements

The author sincerely expresses gratitude to the reviewers Mannat Abbot and Anamika P K for their valuable comments, constructive suggestions, and continuous guidance throughout the preparation of this article. Their insightful feedback significantly enhanced the clarity, organisation, and analytical quality of the manuscript. The author also acknowledges the support and encouragement received during the research and writing process, which contributed to the successful completion of this work.

Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.

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