Defence Ministry on Thursday awarded a Rs 409 crore contract to a Nagpur-based private company to manufacture modern multi-mode hand grenades that would replace the World War-II design grenades that are being used by the Indian Army.
Designed by the Terminal Ballistic Research Laboratories, Chandigarh — one of the DRDO units — the grenades will be manufactured by the Solar Group that would supply 10 lakh such modern hand-grenades in the next two years.
The grenade that can be used in defensive and offensive modes offer a number of advantages over the vintage ammunition that is being used currently.
This is for the first time in India that a privately-owned company has received an order to supply complete ammunition to the Army.
“The multi-mode hand grenades have highly accurate delay time, very high reliability in usage and are safe for carriage. Extensive trials were successfully undertaken by the Indian Army and Director General of Quality Assurance in 2017-18 in plains, deserts and high altitude during the summer and winter periods,” Satyanarayan Nuwal, Solar Group Chairman and Executive Director, said in a statement.
The technology was transferred to Economic Explosives Ltd, a subsidiary of the Solar group, in 2016 as a part of the government’s efforts to encourage Indian private sector to enter into the defence manufacturing space.
Defence Ministry on Thursday also awarded a Rs 7,796.39 crore contract to Indian Telephone Industries Ltd to establish the next phase of the Army Static Switched Communication Network (ASCON) for a secure strategic and theatre area communication network.
An upgrade of the existing ASCON network, the project would be executed in the next 36 months, Defence Ministry said in a statement.
With approximately 80% of indigenous content, the project will provide a boost to the Indian industry. The project would generate some amount of local level employment as it involves civil works, laying of optical fibre cables and construction of towers with the utilization of local resources, it added.