The defence acquisition council (DAC), on Friday, granted approval for nine capital acquisition proposals worth Rs 45,000 crore.
With the aim of enhancing protection, mobility, attack capability and increased surveillance capacity of the forces, the DAC accorded acceptance of necessity (AoN) for the purchase of Light Armoured Multipurpose Vehicles (LAMV), Integrated Surveillance and Targeting System (ISAT-S), High Mobility Vehicle (HMV) and Next Generation Survey Vessels for the Indian Navy.
While the HMV gun-towing vehicles will ensure swift mobilisation and deployment of artillery guns and radar, the survey vessels will boost the capabilities of the Navy to perform hydrographic operations.
The DAC also approved AoN for proposals of the Air Force which included Avionic upgradation of Dornier Aircraft to improve the accuracy and reliability for operations, procurement of Dhruvastra Short Range Air-to-Surface Missile as a potent Indigenous Precision Guided Weapon for indigenously built ALH Mk-IV Helicopters and procurement of 12 Su-30 MKI Aircraft with associated equipment from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
The equipment will be bought from Indian manufacturers, giving a substantial boost to the Indian defence Industry towards achieving the goal of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat, the Centre said.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who chaired the meeting of DAC, said, "Rather than a threshold of 50 per cent indigenous content for IDDM projects, we should aim for a minimum 60-65 per cent indigenous content," and asked the chief of defence staff, service chiefs, defence secretary and DG (acquisition) to work towards increasing the minimum indigenous content threshold in consultation with the Industry leaders.