Purchase of 145 M777 howitzer guns approved

Coming as a big relief to the Indian Army, Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) on Friday approved the purchase of 145 ultra-light howitzer guns. This will be for the first time in 27 years that Army will get a new gun after the Bofors acquisition of 1984 which got embroiled into scam.

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), headed by Defence Minister A.K. Antony, cleared the deal for the M777 BAE Systems guns which will be bought through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route of the US government. This is a government to government arrangement.

This comes as a relief because the crunch in the equipments, more in the artillery, was highlighted by the Army Chief in a recent letter addressed to the Prime Minister. The guns being ultra-light in weight with the 155mm 39 calibre can be easily airlifted, under slung the helicopters, will be deployed along the high altitude mountainous terrain in the northeast and the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir bordering China.

The deal is said to be of the amount of around Rs.3, 000 crore (Approximately 700 million US Dollar). This approval comes after a favourable report was given by a committee which was headed by DRDO chief VK Saraswat and after the gun was rigorously tried and tested by the Army.

The projects approved by the DAC will now be put up before the Finance Ministry for clearance and after it the final approval will come from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).