Paras Defence and Space Technologies Limited

Paras Defence and Space Technologies grew out of a Mumbai engineering firm started by Sharad Shah in the late 1970s to make import substitution parts, and it listed in 2021 after one of the most heavily oversubscribed Indian public offerings of that year. The company works out of Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra with a team of somewhat over 500 people. Customers include DRDO, ISRO, Hindustan Aeronautics, Larsen and Toubro, the Indian Navy and the defence shipyards. The order book has passed 900 crore rupees. The 2021 offering was subscribed more than 300 times and raised about 170 crore rupees.

Defence and space optics is the vertical that made the name. Paras grinds, polishes and coats infrared lenses for thermal imagers, optical domes, metal and Zerodur mirrors, diffractive gratings, multifold lenses, gyro blocks and lens barrels, and it supplies large mirrors, deployable antennas and carbon fibre structures for satellites and ground telescopes. Optronic systems build on that base. The company is the only Indian and, by its own account, the only Asia Pacific private manufacturer of turnkey optronic submarine periscopes, a capability transferred from the DRDO Instruments Research and Development Establishment, and it delivers roughly one every 45 days. Hyperspectral imaging cameras for space missions, a border surveillance system developed with DRDO, remotely operated weapon stations and turret stabilisation systems come from the same group.

Defence electronics covers military grade control systems, rugged VME and VPX computing platforms, MIL qualified displays, command and control consoles, automated test equipment, embedded high performance computing and the avionics suites the company supplies to aircraft programmes. Heavy engineering is the metal side of the house: flow formed tubes for rocket and missile motor cases, complex titanium assemblies, submarine winches, transducer positioning platforms, active array radar cooling assemblies and armoured recovery vehicle winch systems. A fourth line sells electromagnetic pulse protection, where Paras describes itself as the only Indian supplier offering turnkey work, covering shielded rooms and control centres, protected racks and cabinets, shielded doors, air vents, filters and anechoic chambers. Newer subsidiaries push into drone technologies, counter drone jamming and quantum communication and sensing, alongside smaller ventures in thermal products and rail coach metals. It is a small company with an unusually long parts list, and the through line is precision manufacturing rather than any single platform. Technology partnerships with Controp of Israel, Holland Shielding Systems of the Netherlands and several European suppliers fill the gaps where the company does not build its own subsystems, and much of the growth has come from replacing imports on programmes that already exist rather than from winning new platforms.