Defence Acquisition Council gives green signal for defence equipment acquisition worth Rs 2700 crores

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman which met on Tuesday gave its green signal for acquisition of defence equipment for about Rs 2700 crores.

Nirmala Sitharaman (Source: PTI)

New Delhi: The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman which met on Wednesday gave its green signal for acquisition of defence equipment for about Rs 2700 crores. Approval was granted for procurement of three Cadet Training ships for the Indian Navy, which would be utilised to provide basic sea training for officer cadets including women officer undertrainees. The clearance given by Defence Ministry for acquiring new arsenal for the security forces comes at the back of an intense stand off between India and Pakistan following the dastardly terror attack which was carried out by Jaish-E-Mohammad on a CRPF convey in Pulwama. The ships would be capable of undertaking Hospital Ship duties, providing Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief, undertaking Search and Rescue (SAR) missions and Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations. The defence ministry had earlier approved a project worth Rs 40,000 crore for building six advanced submarines in the country under the government’s ‘strategic partnership’ (SP) model to bolster the Indian Navy’s underwater force levels, a defence ministry spokesperson said. The project was the second cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) under the SP model, which seeks to provide fillip to the government’s Make in India programme. The DAC, headed by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, cleared the first project last August for building 111 naval utility helicopters (NUH) to replace the navy’s outdated fleet of French-designed Chetak choppers. The NUH project is worth Rs 21,738 crore.