The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday cleared two upgradation and procurement projects worth over Rs 2,800 crore. These include equipping armour fighting vehicles (BMP) used by infantry with night fighting capabilities and Ordnance Factory, Medak will undertake the deal worth over Rs 2,400 crore. The same factory will also manufacture command and control posts for directing artillery fire and the deal is Rs 406 crores.
Giving details of the two projects falling under the category of Buy India category, Defence Ministry officials said after the DAC meeting that the Medak factory in Telangana will provide upgrade which will render the armour fighting vehicles (BMP) complete night fighting capable and achieve better accuracy. The cost of the project is Rs 2,400 crore.
These vehicles ferry infantry troops into the battlefield and protect them from enemy fire. At present, the Army has more than 2,750 BMPs made in collaboration with Russia. The armoured carriers fitted with medium machine guns can accommodate at least 11 soldiers including three crew members.
The DAC, which is the apex body for clearing all acquisition proposals of the armed forces, also gave the go ahead for carrier command posts on tracked vehicles for technical control of artillery fire, officials said.
The Medak factory will manufacture the command posts equipped with latest communication systems and computers to enable the commander to effectively direct fire at targets. The posts will also have unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to assist the commander to gather precise information about the battlefield scenario in real time, sources said.
These command posts will give a boost to the Army’s artillery modernisation plan. It aims to procure 2,800 to 3,000 artillery guns including 814 truck mounted guns, 1,580 towed guns, 100 tracked self-propelled gun, 180 wheeled self-propelled guns and 145 ultra-light howitzers.
In fact, the Army acquired the first lot of howitzers in May this year after a gap of more than 31 years when artillery modernisation plan came to a standstill in the wake of Bofors gun controversy. The first two pieces of M-777 howitzers manufactured in the US arrived in India in May and are now undergoing field trials in Rajasthan. The contract for the howitzers is over 737 million dollars.
While the Army will buy 25 guns off the shelf, the remaining howitzers will be assembled at a Mahindra factory in India. The entire lot of 145 guns to be used in fighting wars in mountains especially against China will be inducted by the end of 2021.