Indian Army Proposal For 3,000 Anti-Tank Guided Missiles: Defence Ministry To Consider Rs 1000-Crore Deal With France

Indian Army is planning to buy over 3,000 Milan 2T anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) from France in order to provide its infantry units with more firepower against the enemy tank regiments. The deal is expected to be worth over Rs 1,000 crore, as reported by ANI.

"An Army proposal in this regard would come up for discussion at a high-level meeting of the Defence Ministry for buying more than 3,000 of the second-generation Milan 2T ATGMs which are license-produced by the Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) in partnership with a French firm," Defence Ministry sources were cited in the report as saying.

According to the report, Even though Indian army is searching for third-generation ATGMs with a range greater than its existing Milan 2T and Konkur ATGMs, it has a requirement of as many as 70,000 ATGMs of different types and nearly 850 various launchers.

As the indigenously developed third-generation ATGM is still undergoing trials, Army is likely to procure Milan 2T ATGMs as a stopgap arrangement. Milan 2T, a second-generation French ATGM, has a range of over 2 km and is manufactured in India by Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL).

Last year, India had scrapped a programme to buy Spike ATGM from Israel in the wake of indigenous efforts in the direction. Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO), so far, has conducted two successful trials of the indigenous man-portable ATGMs.