AFP, MADRAS: India on Wednesday rolled out the first locally-assembled T-90 as part of a deal with its main arms supplier Russia to put together as many as 186 such frontline battle tanks in the next few years, officials here said.
Russia has already supplied 124 off-the-shelf T-90s worth 650 million dollars after signing the mammoth military deal in 2001 to help India to upgrade its ageing T-72 tanks, which has scant protection against nuclear attacks.
Officials at a state-run armament factory here said 80 T-90s were on the assembly line, adding the number could go up to 100 in an year and the indigenous production of the Russian-designed battle tanks could begin in three years.
Military experts say the T-90's successful rollout in the southern Indian city of Madras could see the burial of a glitch-ridden project launched 25 years ago by India to indigenously build a tank named after mythological archer Arjun.
Junior Defence Minister O. Rajagopal, attending the rollout ceremony, however insisted the jinxed Arjun project was on course and the first local tank would be launched “in a few months.”
The Indian military has so far rejected various versions of Arjun's armour, engine or firepower systems handed over to it for field tests.
The former soviet union accounted for more than 70 percent of India's military hardware but since its 1991 collapse New Delhi has been scouring Western arms bazaar for modern equipment.
India annually spends around 14 billion dollars, or 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product, on its military's upkeep.
