Today the Indian Army has rejected our assault rifles meant to replace AK-47 and INSAS rifles due to quality issues and ineffective firepower. The Ordinance Factory Board manufactured the assault rifles. The Army and other security forces like Indian Navy decided to reject those guns built by the Rifle Factory Ishapore after they miserably failed the firing tests which were held in last week.
The Army said that there were a number of faults in the rifles and complete redesigning of the magazine is needed to consider the guns to be used by the Army. According to them the excessive sound and flash were observed in the rifles during the trials. They also said that reliability aspect of the rifles needs comprehensive analysis.
These guns have an excessive number of stoppages and faults to the extent of more than 20 times the maximum permissible limits. Last year also the Army had rejected another indigenously-built assault rifle named Excalibur guns as it did not meet the desired standards. Tomorrow a high-level meeting will be held to decide about procurement of assault rifles for the armed forces. The main points of discussion in the meeting will be to deliberate on specifications required for the assault rifles.
The Indian Soldiers currently use AK-47 guns and Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) rifles, which are made in India, and were introduced in the Army in 1988 and are meant to be replaced with deadlier assault rifles of higher caliber this year, especially along borders and in counter-insurgency operations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make In India campaign seeks to boost manufacturing including by building an indigenous defense industry that will involve local private arms manufacturers working with foreign firms. It is well-known to all that India is the world’s largest arms importer. The central government is forecast to spend more than $250 billion on the modernization of its armed forces over the next decade.
Currently, India gets more than 70 % of its arms from abroad. For decades, it has bought off-the-shelf equipment mainly from Russia. They offered to assemble some weaponry locally but little in the way of technology transfers, deemed essential under Prime Minister Modi’s policies.
On Thursday, key stakeholders from the Indian Army, Air Force and Navy of the Defense Ministry meeting to spell out the precise specifications of the assault rifles that the security forces need. They are to decide it quicker as the acquisition process has already been badly delayed.
The Indian government had planned to announce a formal Request for Proposal for these rifles by end of April this year. At the moment, the security armed forces have not even decided on the exact specifications that they require. As they work out these details, around twenty-one gun manufacturers from all over the world have signaled their intention to bid for this contract with Indian security forces.
