New Delhi: Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) — the defence ministry’s apex procurement body — on Saturday gave the go-ahead to a Rs 2,400-crore plan to upgrade and modernise the Indian Army’s armoured fighting vehicles.
The upgrade aims to make them capable of undertaking night operations and achieving better accuracy in hitting targets.
The DAC, chaired by defence minister Arun Jaitley, also approved procurement of carrier command post vehicles for the Army at a total cost of Rs 406 crores, defence ministry sources said.
Command post vehicles act as centralised command facilities, equipped with electronic command and control systems, to ensure precision firing. The modernisation of the armoured fighting vehicles will be carried out by the state-run Ordnance Factory at Medak in Telangana.
The Army already has at least 2,500 such vehicles. The carrier command post vehicles will also be supplied to the Army by Medak Ordnance Factory.
Sources said the DAC also reviewed and accorded directions to various ongoing procurement projects to ensure smooth progress in the acquisition process.
