Amid the ongoing dispute with China over boundary issue, the Indian Army is going to place another order of 72,000 Sig 716 assault rifles from the United States.
The order for the second batch of the assault rifles would be coming after the first lot of 72,000 rifles, has already been delivered to the Army for use by troops in Northern Command and other operational areas.
The Indian Army had received the first lot of Sig Sauer assault rifles to boost its counter-terrorism operations.
India had acquired the rifles under the fast-track procurement (FTP) programme.
The new rifles will replace the existing Indian Small Arms System (Insas) 5.56x45mm rifles used by the forces and manufactured locally by the Ordnance Factories Board.
The bulk of Army soldiers were slated to get 7.62×39 mm caliber AK-203 Kalashnikov rifles, with an effective range of 300-metre, to supplement the limited number of the more advanced US-origin rifles with a longer kill range.
But the much-touted ‘Make in India’ project to manufacture 6.71 lakh AK-203 rifles at Korwa ordnance factory in Amethi district of Uttar Pradesh has run into rough weather yet again, as was reported by media last month.
The defence ministry has now appointed a “costing committee” to fix a “reasonable price” for manufacturing AK-203s after the JV between Indian Ordnance Factory Board and Russian Rosonboronexport and Kalashnikov company quoted an “unreasonable and unacceptable” price for the rifles. The DAC, incidentally, had granted “acceptance of necessity” to procure 6,71,427 AK-203 rifles at an estimated cost of Rs 4,358 crore in January 2019.
