Sustaining the pace of modernisation, the Government on Wednesday approved acquisitions worth over Rs13,000 crores for buying helicopters, ammunition and rockets for the armed forces.

The nod was given for these procurements in a meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by Defence Minister  Rajnath Singh.  Moreover, out of the

Rs13,165 crores proposed acquisitions, procurement worth Rs11,486 cr. (87%) is from the domestic sources, defence ministry officials said after the DAC meeting. They said key approvals include helicopters, guided ammunition and rocket ammunition.

Looking into the need of the Indian Army for an Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) Squadron, to improve its integral lift capability ensuring its operational preparedness, the DAC accorded approval of procurement of 25 ALH Mark III helicopters from the public sector aerospace giant Hindustan Aeronautics Limited(HAL) under Buy Indian-IDDM at an approx. cost of Rs3,850 cr, in keeping with the continued thrust towards ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’.

At present, the army has 90 ALH and 75 Rudra, weaponised ALH, helicopters in service which are indigenously designed and developed by the HAL in addition to around 160 older Cheetah and Chetak utility helicopters which are in need of urgent replacement.

Meanwhile, giving boost to indigenous design and development of ammunitions, the DAC accorded approval for procurement of Terminally Guided Munition (TGM) under Buy (Indian-IDDM) category at an approximate cost of Rs4,962 cr. from domestic sources.  Other proposals worth Rs4,353 crores were also approved, they said.

In addition, the DAC also approved a few amendments to the Defence Acquisition Procedure(DAP) 2020 as a part of business process re-engineering to ensure further ease of doing business for the industry as well as measures to enhance procurement efficiency and reducing timelines.