New Delhi: A chagrined Indian Army on Monday placed a fresh order for an additional 124 'Arjun' Main Battle Tanks, finally conceding the battle worthiness, and the superiority, of this indigenously developed design over much-hyped foreign developed imports. The battle for an unqualified acceptance of the Arjun as a product at par with, and indeed superior to comparable products, either Western or Russian, was a long drawn one and was clinched at the comparative trials conducted in March this year at the Mahajan firing ranges in Rajasthan.

Today would indeed be a red-letter day for DRDO scientists, past and present, involved with this long drawn-out programme.

The order would also come as a slap in the face of persistent media critics who have taken pathological delight at the trials and tribulations that this indigenous development programme have had to suffer across all sectors and decades. The last such report from a respected media source, issued before the March 2010 trials, indeed accused the DRDO of ramming the Arjun down the throats of the army. If only the DRDO had such pervasive influence!

"The Army has decided to place fresh order for an additional home-built 124 Main Battle Tank Arjun. This is over and above the existing order of 124 tanks. The development follows the success of the indigenous MBT Arjun in the recent gruelling desert trials," a defence ministry spokesperson said here.

The additional 124 MBTs will allow the Army to raise an additional two regiments of these indigenously developed tanks. The Army already has inducted the original order of 124 tanks and the production line set aside for their production at the Heavy Vehicles Factory at Avadi near Chennai.

"After many years of trials and tribulations, the tank has now proved its worth by its superb performance under various circumstances, such as driving cross-country over rugged sand dunes, detecting, observing and quickly engaging targets and accurately hitting targets, both stationary and moving with pinpoint accuracy," the spokesperson said.

The Arjun/T-90 shoot-out

Strangely, the greatest favour the Arjun Main Battle Tank project ever received was from the Indian Army itself when stand-in army chief General Shankar Roy Chowdhary placed the first orders for the tank in a bid to industrialise the technology that had been developed by the DRDO. Though DRDO scientists breathed a sigh of relief, the attacks from interested quarters, both from within the army and outside, only increased in intensity. Defence imports are a big-ticket business after all.

Refusing to buckle under unceasing pressure from the army to wind up the programme and shift to developing a ''futuristic'', or Mark II version, of the Arjun, project scientists from the Defence and Research Development Organisation (DRDO) insisted on a showdown with the much touted Russian T-90, which the army had begun peddling as a panacea for all its armour related needs.

Faced with persistent demands from the DRDO the army initially tried its best to squirm out of a one-on-one with the T-90, rightly fearing that all its tall claims about the T-90, and critically, its determined campaign to run down all aspects of the Arjun MBT, would stand exposed.

Failing in its efforts to dilly dally its way through the process of organising such a one-on-one with the T-90 it finally held a summer trial in the deserts of Rajasthan this year only after letting it be known that this wasn't a 'comparative trial' but only a test to figure out the 'operational role' for the Arjun MBT.

The results of the March comparative trials, it is now being let known, was a shocker for the Indian Army top brass, who attended the test in surprisingly large numbers, with the Arjun outperforming and outgunning the T-90 in all departments of the game.

The T-90 currently serving with the Indian Army after all upgrades costs Rs17 crore, as against an Rs16 crore price tag for the Arjun. Larger orders for the Arjun will further bring down per unit costs.

The defence ministry decided last week to go in for the development of the second-generation of Arjun tanks.