The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been able to indigenise production of 154 out of 175 ammunition variants, which works out to 88 per cent, required by the Indian Army, as it charters a long term roadmap of 10 years to become self-sufficient in fire power to withstand a prolonged war.
To reduce import dependence, Ministry sources said the process of indigenising production of Russian-origin Armour-Piercing Fin-Stablished Discarding Sabot (APFSDS), which is an anti-tank ammunition, and Swedish-made 84 mm ammunition is at fairly advanced stages.
The Defence Research And Development Organisation (DRDO) had developed APFSDS but it did not meet the requirement of the Army. The MoD in 2015-16 sought Transfer of Technology (ToT) of the Russian design of the APFSDS and a plant and accompanying facilities are being set up at State-owned Munitions India Ltd (MIL), which is headquartered at Pune, Maharashtra.
Some of the units for production of armour piercing ammunition have been established while Russians have to commence the balance, MoD sources stated.
Similarly, the Ministry has also got ToT for 84 mm ammunitions from Sweden. Of the seven varieties, the ToT is for three of them and 70-75 per cent of the work of indigenisation of the ammunition is over.
Each component is made and evaluated against the specified standards and the plant is expected to be complete in 2025, the MoD sources observed.
Under the ‘Manufacture of Ammunition for Indian Army by Indian Industry’ programme, the Ministry is in the process to establish at least one indigenous source for all types of ammunition the force needs to fire.
For that, the MoD has sought private as well as the PSU participation for ramping up the capacity to make India aatmanirbhar as like in other segments of defence production.
Parallelly other efforts are also on, like for indigenous development of 7.62 mm ammunition for machine guns. Though original design is Russian, MIL has tried to develop its own ammo for which the internal trials are going on.
Expression of Interest (EOI) too has been floated by the Indian Army to seek industry response for 23 mm anti-aircraft ammunition.
A Request for Proposal has been issued to MIL for another type of anti-aircraft gun ammunition of 40 mm, said MoD sources.
Some of the ammunitions are not required to be produce domestically because of their limited purpose, Ministry sources explained on the remaining 21 ammunition variants not covered under the aatmanirbharta drive.
In this initiative, the MoD is also in a bind as it’s trying to find a way out over how to sustain the ammunition industry in case India is not engaged in war since manufacturing capacity of the existing PSUs are also being scaled up.
By way of achieving self-sufficiency in ammunition, the MoD also intends to save on foreign exchange as Made in India ones are much cheaper than those that are imported, commented Ministry officials.
Much before the Russia-Ukraine war, India had realised the need to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers of ammunition during the Galwan face off with China in April of 2020.