India to acquire Russian S-400 Triumf missile shield
18 Dec 2015
India will be acquiring S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems from Russia that are capable of destroying incoming hostile aircraft, missiles and also drones within a range of up to 400 km, a development that would give a major boost to the nation's air defence capability.
The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), defence ministry's top acquisition body, at its meeting on Thursday, cleared purchase of Russian S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems, worth an estimated Rs40,000-crore. DAC also gave a go-ahead for other joint projects with Russia worth over Rs25,000 crore.
The council, which met under the chairmanship of defence minister Manohar Parrikar, announced the decision today.
The move comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Russia later this month. Once the deal is struck, India will be the second buyer of the missile system after China.
Considered to be the most modern air defence system in the Russian arsenal, the S-400 Triumf is also capable of taking on ballistic missiles and hypersonic targets. The new S-400 has a 2.5 times faster firing rate as compared to its predecessor S-300.
The DAC also gave the ''acceptance of necessity'' to Army's proposal for the purchase of six regiments of the Pinaka rocket system worth Rs14,600 crore under the 'Make in India' category.
Each regiment of the Pinaka comes with 18 launchers and every launcher has the capability of firing 12 rockets at the same time.
The DAC approved the Army's demand for 571 light bullet-proof vehicles to be used in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations, at a cost of Rs310 crore.
The DAC also gave the go-ahead for the purchase of 120 trawls to be used on Russian origin T-72 and T-90 tanks under ''Buy Global'' category for Rs450 crore.
The council cleared digitisation of 24 Pechora Air Defence system for Rs1,200 crore. It also cleared a Rs425-crore electronic warfare system for the Indian Army to be deployed in the mountain region.
The defence minister today said his ministry will soon be coming out with a revised Defence Procurement Procedure as well as the Defence Procurement Manual 2016.
He said the current Defence Procurement Procedure is being amended and a committee of experts headed by Dhirendra Singh had submitted its report. The committee was appointed to evolve a policy framework to facilitate `Make in India' in defence manufacturing, align the policy evolved with DPP-2013 and suggest requisite amendments in DPP-2013 to remove bottlenecks in the procurement process and also simplify/rationalise various aspects of defence procurement.
The Defence Procurement Manual is also under the process of internal vetting and is expected to be finalized by end-June 2016, he added.
