I'm aware that AWS already offers local instances here at Mumbai and Hyderabad (ap-south-1/2) but they want to remove foreign dependency completely for whatever reason.

My understanding is that most Indian cloud services are just in their infancy at this stage and still act as resellers of global providers like AWS or Alibaba Cloud, thus making them nothing more than costly middle-men or arbitrages. When I tried to put forth this point, the client asked me to research purely India based cloud hosting providers who aren't depending on any outside entities for their network infrastructure.

They're even prepared to pay a small premium on the hosting price if such a service exists. Their idea (I think) is to ensure that money is spent in the home country and doesn't leave the shores. If nothing turns out in my research, we might still have to continue using AWS but I want to give this a try at least. Do you know of any such genuine providers?