Govt clears Defence accession worth Rs 38,900 Cr

Defence Acquisition Council ( DAC) in its meeting held yesterday accorded approval for Capital acquisitions of various platforms and equipment required by the Indian Armed Forces. Proposals for an approximate cost of 38900 Crore rupees were approved.

The meeting chaired by Defence minister Rajnath Singh focused on indigenous design and development. These approvals include acquisitions from Indian Industry amounting to 31130 Crore rupees.

The equipments are to be manufactured in India involving Indian Defence Industry with participation of several MSMEs as prime tier vendors. The Indigenous content in some of these projects is up to 80 per cent of the project cost. A large number of these projects have been made possible due to Transfer of Technology by DRDO to the Indigenous Industry.

These include Pinaka ammunitions, BMP armament upgrades and Software Defined Radios for the Army, Long Range Land Attack Cruise Missile Systems and Astra Missiles for Navy and Air Force. The cost of these Design and Development proposals is in the range of 20400 crore rupees.

Further, addressing the long felt need of the Indian Air Force to increase its fighter squadrons, the DAC also approved the proposal for procurement of 21 MIG-29 . It also approved upgradation of existing 59 Mig-29 aircraft and procurement of 12 Su-30 MKI aircraft.