New Delhi: With a view to boosting its firepower, the Indian Army is readying to induct upgraded artillery guns Sharang by the end of the month with a symbolic handing over ceremony at DefExpo-2020.

The Ordnance Factory Board will supply the first batch of 12 upgraded guns to the Army by February end, while the remaining ones will be delivered in batches by 2022-end, said Lieutenant General A Mukherjee (Retd), a consultant to the OFB and a former Director General of the Army’s artillery directorate.

Artillery modernisation is a top priority for the Army and the force plans to order 300 more Dhanush guns, a senior officer said. The Army has also begun inducting 155 mm/ 52-calibre tracked self-propelled K9 VAJRA-T guns, being manufactured in India by private sector defence major Larsen & Toubro and South Korea’s Hanwha Techwin.

India ordered 145 M-777 howitzers from the United States for $750 million in November 2016 which were the first artillery guns to be ordered after the Bofors scandal.

The Army’s Rs 50,000-crore field artillery modernisation programme, cleared two decades ago, lays down the roadmap for inducting new 155mm weaponry. The plan seeks to equip 169 artillery regiments with a mix of nearly 3,000 guns in the coming years.