NEW DELHI: For years, the Indian Army has needed 230 of its main battle tanks overhauled annually but had the capacity to get only 150 done. That gap is set to close with a new Rs 472-crore facility at Vehicle Factory, Jabalpur, for which Defence Minister Rajnath Singh performed the bhoomi pujan Thursday.
The Jabalpur line will refurbish 80 T-72 and T-90 tanks a year, taking India’s annual tank overhaul capacity to 230, matching the Army’s stated requirement, the defence ministry said. The Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF) at Avadi, which has carried the entire load so far, will continue to handle 150.
An overhaul strips a tank down and rebuilds it, resetting its service life.
The additional capacity matters because the T-72 ‘Ajeya’ will have to stay in service well beyond its intended life. First inducted in the late 1970s, the fleet is estimated at 2,400 to 2,500 tanks. Its intended replacement, the Future Ready Combat Vehicle (FRCV) programme for about 1,770 tanks, has been through repeated false starts since 2015. The Defence Acquisition Council has accorded it acceptance of necessity, but bids are yet to be finalised. Estimates of its cost run between Rs 57,000 crore and Rs 60,000 crore.
Vehicle Factory Jabalpur is a unit of Armoured Vehicles Nigam Limited (AVNL), one of the seven defence public sector undertakings carved out of the erstwhile Ordnance Factory Board in 2021.
Defence Minister Singh said the relevance of tanks had not diminished with the advent of drones, precision-guided weapons, missiles, satellites, artificial intelligence and cyber warfare, but had evolved.
“Modern warfare demands combined capabilities rather than dependence on a single platform. Tanks, infantry, artillery, drones, air power, surveillance, and precision weapons together form an integrated combat system,” he said, citing the Army’s Integrated Battle Group construct.
Tanks needed superior sensors aligned with modern battlefield requirements, he added. The focus was on equipping soldiers with drones, missiles, artillery, electronic warfare capabilities, energy weapons and modernised tanks, and on ensuring coordination among them.
HVF Avadi has supplied around 4,400 tanks to the Army over the past four decades, Singh said. AVNL brought 25 years of experience in overhauling T-72 and T-90 variants, he added, and the project would strengthen Jabalpur’s position as a hub for defence maintenance and modernisation.
On self-reliance, the Defence Minister said nations with advanced technologies, resilient supply chains, robust industrial capacity and dynamic innovation capabilities would be better placed to withstand prolonged conflicts.
“Our aim is to manufacture defence equipment domestically, undertake repair and maintenance within the country, upgrade existing systems with modern technologies, and develop next-generation capabilities indigenously,” he said.
Singh put defence production at around Rs 1.80 lakh crore in 2025-26, against Rs 46,000 crore in 2014, and exports at approximately Rs 39,000 crore, against under Rs 1,000 crore a decade ago. Figures released earlier by the Ministry of Defence put production at Rs 1.78 lakh crore for the fiscal and exports at a record Rs 38,424 crore, to more than 80 countries. The government has targeted Rs 3 lakh crore in annual production and Rs 50,000 crore in exports by 2029.