What’s in News

• Indian Army is prioritising the procurement of the indigenous Indian light tank, named ‘Zorawar’, for deployment in the mountains.
• The Indian Army has also procured swarm drones from Indian start-ups
  • A swarm drone system consists of a number of small drones which are AI-enabled and capable of communicating with the control station as well as among themselves, and provide asymmetric capabilities for taking out the adversary’s frontline assets.

About

• Zorawar is designed to operate in varying terrain from high altitude areas and marginal terrains to island territories.
• It will be highly transportable for rapid deployment to meet any operational situation, and feature niche technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), drone integration, active protection systems, and a high degree of situational awareness
• The project, which has already received in-principle approval, is planned to be procured under the ‘Make-I’ acquisition category of the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP)-2020

The need

• To deploy armour at an altitude of 15,000 ft. ex: to outmaneuver the movement of Chinese forces during the stand-off in eastern Ladakh,
• The recent experiences along the northern borders have shown that armour equipment profile is one of the most prominent factors in defining the operational capability of land forces
• While the large tank fleet consisting of T-72 and T-90 tanks was useful in gaining tactical surprise over the adversary, the heavy tanks were primarily designed for operations in the plains and in desert terrains, and face certain limitations at high altitudes or when deployed in the marginal terrain of the Rann of Kutch. It is therefore an operational necessity to procure a lighter tank to overcome these limitations, and design and develop it indigenously

Additional Details

Defence Procurement Procedures (DPP) 2020

• It creates the publication of a list of weapons or platforms that cannot be imported
• It focuses on FDI in defence production and indigenization of manufacturing costs.
• It also introduces numerous new concepts, including the need for artificial intelligence in platforms and systems, the use of indigenous software in defence equipment, and ‘innovation’ by start-ups and MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) as a new category of defence purchase.
• Buy (Indian – Indigenously Designed, Developed, and Manufactured), Buy (Indian), Buy and Make (Indian), Buy (Global – Manufacture in India), and Buy (Global – Manufacture in India) (Global).
• It raises the Indigenous Content (IC) requirement for all projects from 40 to 50 percent previously, depending on the category, to 50 to 60 percent now.
• Foreign vendors can receive 30% IC from Indian enterprises only if they purchase through Buy (Global)

The ‘Make’ Categories aim to achieve the objective of self-reliance by involving greater participation of Indian industrial eco-system including private sector through the following procedures: –

• Make-I (Government Funded): Projects involving design and development of equipment, systems, major platforms or upgrades thereof by the industry.
• Make-II (Industry Funded): Projects under Make-II category will include prototype development by the Private industry, for which no Government funding will be provided. 
• Make-III {Indigenously Manufactured (IM)}: These would encompass which although not designed/developed indigenously, but are being manufactured in India as import substitution for product support of weapon systems/equipment held in the inventory of the Services.

References:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indian-army-accelerates-procurement-of-light-tank-zorawar-for-lac/article65814103.ece
2. https://www.mod.gov.in/sites/default/files/DraftChIIIMakeInno.pdf