NEW DELHI – As Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushes ahead with his militarymodernization process with a targeted $250 billion spend over 10 years till2025, India has widened the scope of its arms purchases to includeequipment from the US. In the last two years, the US has emerged as India’stop defense supplier.

Since 2007, the US has won defense orders from India worth $17 billion,according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

India is reducing its dependence on Russia for critical defense programs,with the joint venture BrahMos missile set to be guided by alocally-developed target tracking device in the next year.

Defense scientists have developed a new indigenous system that identifiesmissile targets to replace the Russian-developed seeker on all futureBrahMos, Sudhir K. Mishra, the chief executive officer of BrahMos Aerospacesaid.

“Our objective is to make use of the Indian seeker on all future BrahMosmissiles,” Mishra said in an interview on the sidelines of India’s defenseshow, DefExpo, on Wednesday in Chennai. “The Russians say if the Indianssupply a cheaper, cost-effective and reliable seeker, then let us take itfrom India.”

There are also plans to use a locally-made warhead on the missile, he said,without specifying a time frame.

Russia accounted for 68% of India’s arms imports from 2012 to 2016,according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

It’s been the largest defense supplier to India since the 1960s when theMiG-21 supersonic fighter jets were bought to equip the Indian Air Force.

These were then license-produced at the state-held Hindustan AeronauticsLimited until recently, when India began to junk the MiG jets and plan acomplete phase out of the aircraft by 2022.

India is preparing to test an anti-ship version of the seeker sometime inOctober-November this year, Mishra said. A successful second test wouldallow it to go into production soon after.