Search the Internet           Tips

Price is the only problem
with Russian MBTs

Josy Joseph in New Delhi

The much delayed purchase of T-90S main battle tanks for the Indian Army continues to face hurdles.

The dispute is over the price, with India unwilling to pay more than $ 2.1 million apiece, and the Russians demanding over $ 2.3 million, army sources said.

But the defence ministry expects the deal to be finalised in the next few months.

India and Russia will sign an agreement on Wednesday where the former will indicate an interest in the deal in principle.

The army proposes to acquire about 100 tanks from Russia, and build 200 more at Avadi in Tamil Nadu under a transfer-of-technology agreement.

Originally, India was planning to acquire 310 tanks for six regiments from Russia, but with the new decision, forced upon it by financial constraints, only two regiments will now get the tanks.

About 60 regiments of the Armoured Corps are desperately in need of MBTs, "but we will have to make do with whatever we can," a senior officer said.

The delay in purchase was mostly due to bureaucratic wranglings, and the army is annoyed.

Sources said General Ved Prakash Malik, who recently demitted office as the army chief, had written to Defence Minister George Fernandes requesting him to expedite the deal, sources said.

The total deal is expected to be worth about Rs 30 billion, sources said. The tanks will begin to arrive in India towards the later part of 2003.

After the agreement between India and Russia, the price negotiation committee, headed by Lt Gen S S Mehta, will continue the negotiations to bring down the price to anything between $ 2 million and $ 2.1 million, sources said.

India has had several rounds of talks with the Russian side over the deal, including over 70 meetings of the price negotiation committee and a visit of Defence Minister George Fernandes to Russia recently.

Indian Army officials told rediff.com that the tank would equip the Indian army with one of the most sophisticated MBTs in the world providing it increased firepower, better mobility and greater protection.

The tank has a 125mm 2A46M smoothbore gun, a coaxial 7.62mm PKT machine gun and 12.7mm AD machine gun mount that can fire against aerial objects as well as ground targets. The tank also has an automatic loader.

An admirable quality of the tank, sources said, is that it can fire shrapnel projectiles with time fuses. The tank can also fire at helicopters and strong ground targets using its Refleks 9M119 guided missile system that has 9M119M missiles.

The tank has a protective cover against almost all conventional weapons like landmines, splinters and small armfire. It also has a protective system, Shtora-1 optronic counter measures system, against anti-tank guided missiles.

It has mounted mine clearing equipment that prevents landmine damages, sources involved in the deal say.

The tank is powered by a 840 horsepower four-stroke V-12 piston engine that runs on diesel.

The tank will have three crew members, and it has a maximum firing range of five kilometres. It is fitted with infra-red night vision devices and high-quality UHF radio sets for communication.

The T-90S tanks would be India's answer to Pakistan's 1996 acquired 320 T-80 MBTs.

India was forced to outsource MBTs because its indigenous development of MBT Arjun failed to meet Army needs, though the defence ministry has given orders for serial production of over 120 tanks.

Besides, its proposed upgradation of T-72 tanks too seems to be taking much time, thus forcing the Army to look at T-90S, sources involved in the negotiations say.

The army has been negotiating the deal ever since Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav was made the offer three years back during his visit to Russia.

There have been several critics of the deal including former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and Rajya Sabha MP Jayant Malhotra. Both claim that there is a huge kickback involved in the deal.

The T-90S has already undergone trials in India. It was weather tested at the Armoured Corps Centre at Ahmadnagar and some of them also took part in exercise Shiv Shakti in 1998.

Officers claim that T-90S, weighing around 46.5 tonnes each, is much superior to other tanks in the region.

The Putin visit: The full coverage

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report