Indian Government has developed a clear road map in place for ammunition procurement for the Indian Army and the long-term requirement for 10 years has been finalised, defence sources said on the efforts to secure supply chains and avoid any impact on operational preparedness.
As of now, already, about 85% of the ammunition requirement has been indigenised, from both the public and private sectors.
The aim is to build up ammunition stocks to desired levels, minimise imports and achieve self-sufficiency in the country, have multiple sources of supply, and possess indigenous manufacturing capability, a defence source in the know said.
The first step is to indigenise all import-dependent ammunition — major platforms with long-term requirement.
As part of this, indigenisation of more than 30 variants, amounting to about Rs 16,000 crores, is under way and five or six variants of ammunition have been identified for production through the Indian industry, which will expand the indigenous vendor base.
Subsequently, next-generation high-tech ammunition based on research and development is being identified for in-house development.
On the broad break-up of ammunition procurement between domestic production and imports, sources said that about 85% of the ammunition has been indigenised, with a bulk of it being met by the Defence Public Sector Undertakings and the rest by the Indian industry.
Less than 10% is met purely through direct imports and there is also some amount of legacy platforms in small numbers that are in the process of being phased out.
