New Delhi. Indigenous defence industry received a major boost October 21 in keeping with the Make in India of Modi 2.0 government, with the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approving Capital Procurement for the Defence forces amounting to over Rs. 3300 crores of indigenously designed and developed equipment.

The DAC accorded approval for three projects to be indigenously designed, developed and manufactured by the Indian industry. The first two projects include third generation Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGM) and the Auxiliary Power Units (APUs) for the T-72 and T-90 Tanks. While the third generation ATGM would provide ‘Fire and Forget’ and “Top Attack” capabilities to the troops in an armoured battle, the APUs would enable incorporation of various upgrades to Fire Control System and Night Fighting capabilities of the Tanks. Both these projects will be progressed under the ‘Make-II’ Category and will provide a boost to indigenous research and development in the Private Sector. With this, for the first time the Ministry of Defence has offered complex Military equipment to be designed, developed and manufactured by the Indian private industry.

The third indigenous project pertains to discrete Electronic Warfare (EW) systems for the mountain and High Altitude terrain, which would be designed and developed by DRDO and manufactured by design cum production partner from the Indian industry.

The DAC met soon after the Minister returned from his visit to Ladakh where he inaugurated a bridge built by Border Roads Organisation (BRO) over River Shyok, connecting Durbuk and Daulat Beg Oldie in Eastern Ladakh.