The Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) was an Indian Ministry of Defence programme for the research and development of the comprehensive range of missiles. The programme was managed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Ordnance Factories Board in partnership with other Indian government political organisations. The project started in 1982–83 under the leadership of Abdul Kalam who oversaw its ending in 2008 after these strategic missiles were successfully developed.

On 8 January 2008, the DRDO formally announced the successful rated guided missile programme was completed with its design objectives achieved since most of the missiles in the programme had been developed and inducted by the Indian Armed Forces.

By the start of the 1980s, the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) had developed competence and expertise in the fields of propulsion, navigation and manufacture of aerospace materials based on the Soviet rocketry technologies. Thus, India's political leadership, which included Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Defence Minister R. Venkataraman and V.S. Arunachalam, the Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, decided that all these technologies should be consolidated.

This led to the birth of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme with Dr. Abdul Kalam, who had previously been the project director for the SLV-3 programme at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was inducted as the DRDL Director in 1983 to conceive and lead it. While the scientists proposed the development of each missile consecutively, the Defence Minister R. Venkataraman asked them to reconsider and develop all the missiles simultaneously. Thus, four projects, to be pursued concurrently, were born under the IGMDP:

The Agni missile was initially conceived in the IGMDP as a technology demonstrator project in the form of a re-entry vehicle, and was later upgraded to a ballistic missile with different ranges. As part of this program, the Interim Test Range at Balasore in Odisha was also developed for missile testing.

After India test-fired the first Prithvi missile in 1988, and the Agni missile in 1989, the Missile Technology Control Regime (then an informal grouping established in 1987 by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) decided to restrict access to any technology that would help India in its missile development program. To counter the MTCR, the IGMDP team formed a consortium of DRDO laboratories, industries and academic institutions to build these sub-systems, components and materials. Though this slowed down the progress of the program, India successfully developed indigenously all the restricted components denied to it by the MTCR.

The starting of India's missile program influenced Pakistan to scramble its resources to meet the challenge. Like India, Pakistan faced hurdles to operationalize its program since education on space sciences was never sought. It took Pakistan decades of expensive trial errors before their program became feasible for military deployment.

The Prithvi missile (from Sanskrit पृथ्वी pṛthvī "Earth") is a family of tactical surface-to-surface short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) and is India's first indigenously developed ballistic missile. Development of the Prithvi began in 1983, and it was first test-fired on 25 February 1988 from Sriharikota, SHAR Centre, Pottisreeramulu Nellore district, Andhra Pradesh. It has a range of up to 150 to 300 km. The land variant is called Prithvi while the naval operational variant of Prithvi I and Prithvi III class missiles are code named Dhanush (meaning "Bow"). Both variants are used for surface targets.