As PM Modi pushes for developing desi drones, army plans to acquire loitering munitions, surveillance systems worth Rs 20k crore
NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi, in his I-Day speech on Saturday, stressed that “India must develop indigenous drone and counter-drone systems and take leadership in hypersonic defence technologies”.His statement came a day after the defence ministry on Friday issued the biggest-ever single purchase order for drones — 84 sets of loitering munition system along with 840 loiter munitions — under the fast-track procedure to Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) and Pune-headquartered NIBE Ltd.Friday’s order forms part of the Indian military’s broader and massive modernisation programme valued at over Rs 20,000 crore to induct advanced indigenous loitering munitions, surveillance systems, and high-altitude unmanned aerial platforms from domestic firms to shift towards drone-led network-centric warfare.A loitering munition system flies to a target area, loiters to search for enemies, and then crashes into the target like a missile to damage it. With increased use of drones in ongoing Ukraine-Russia and Iran-US conflicts, and learning lessons from the clash with Pakistan last year, India is rapidly arming three wings of its military with advanced and sophisticated drones to be combat-ready and has the technology edge over its enemy.
After the Army, Indian Navy has also started the initial process to acquire medium-range loitering munition (LM) capable of sea-based (ship-mounted) operations. In a request for information (RFI), the defence ministry has sought details of a ship-launched LM with a minimum 1,000 km range, 9-hour loiter time and with a flight altitude of 15,000 ft. RFI says LM should have electro-optical, infrared seekers for day-night operations and should have its own power supply system.Speaking exclusively to TOI after bagging the bifurcated contract of providing 54 sets of munition systems with 540 loitering munitions (64%) of the total defence ministry’s order for the Army, Sukaran Singh, CEO & MD, TASL, said, “In India, sophisticated drone technology is normally imported and then mass-produced here. Problem with that is that you can’t make changes in such systems based on imported technology without taking permission from foreign OEM. Whereas, TASL has designed, developed and manufactured this advanced loitering munition system within the Indian ecosystem.”He further said, “From battery, this product required shifting to internal combustion (IC) engine technology as this munition system required much larger warhead, longer endurance, longer range and is autonomous.” Pointing out that TASL, which is the L1 vendor for the Army contract, is also separately developing 400-km-range systems, Singh said, “This system has already gone through the Army’s rigorous tests on high-altitude areas (like Siachen) and passed those tests (with flying colours).”The rest of the ministry’s LM order — 30 sets with 300 munitions (36%) — will be provided by Pune-headquartered NIBE as L2 vendor to the Indian Army. NIBE told TOI that its “LM system Vayu Astra-1 has been developed and manufactured in India after technology transfer from Israel. Vayu Astra-1 has been validated through high-altitude and desert trials before the company secured the Army contract.
