Future Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV)

[Anshu Attri]

Private players to bag 1 lakh-cr army project to make Futuristic Infantry Combat Vehicles (FICV)
:balle:

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/134923/private-players-bag-1-lakh.html

In a wake-up call to the Defence PSUs and in line with the Centre's policy on indigenisation of defence production, one or more private companies are set to bag a Rs 1,00,000-crore tank project from the Army in the coming months.

Defence sources told Deccan Herald that the project to make Futuristic Infantry Combat Vehicles (FICV) –– infantry armoured vehicles –– was in the advanced stages and that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had called for the request for proposal.

Although it is not clear who the private firms would be at this point of time, they said one or more private players, depending on their capabilities, will bag the order, as there are no PSUs contending for the order.

This, they said, was the first time that a defence project had completely barred PSUs from bidding. "The project is only open to private companies and those with adequate technical qualification will bag the order," they said. Another source said that firms with foreign collaboration/tie-ups will have an edge over the others, given the kind of precision the project will require.

"Unlike in India, foreign companies have the experience in participating in, and executing such projects. Thereby, those with joint ventures or partnerships with such firms will have the upper hand," another source explained.

The requirement of such tanks, as of today, they said is estimated at about 25,000.
India had in January this year unveiled a new Defence Production Policy that aims to achieve more than 50 per cent indigenisation in the next decade, and provides a major role to the private sector in defence manufacturing.

This project comes almost as the first move from the Centre, and in a very short time after the policy was unveiled.

This also suggests that the policy, which Defence Minister A K Antony and his deputy, M Pallam Raju, have been warning the PSUs of, was a conscious decision which they hope will show dividends in the coming years, making India a more self-reliant nation.

Sources said the army/MoD has already completed the field and facility visits of companies it has narrowed down on, and has asked for assurance of overseas transfer of technology.

The trend of private players getting a bigger pie in defence manufacturing, they say, is here to persist. Besides the FICV project, the Tactical Communication System project, which is at a nascent stage, will also have a bar on the PSUs from bidding, they said.

 

[Phenom]

1,00,000 crore
that's around 22-24 billion dollars ,
so is this one of those "mother of all defense deals" or is it a reporting error.

 

[Yusuf]

Regardless of the size of the deal, this is huge as it clearly indicates the govt moving fast to create a MIC by getting private sector involved. For me this is historic. No PSU can participate. Which can mean two things. We don't trust you, or it can be you already have your plates full. I am really excited about this development. Good move GoI.

 

[Tshering22]

1 LAKH CRORE!! WTF?? This is a joke right? It is around the same money being planned for PAKFA/FGFA! Surely it must be something like 10,000 crores or 1,000 crores. But this is great to see private players invest in arms industries. We would be soon having our own Uralvagonzavod and Boeing and Raytheons.

 

[Tshering22]

Regardless of the size of the deal, this is huge as it clearly indicates the govt moving fast to create a MIC by getting private sector involved. For me this is historic. No PSU can participate. Which can mean two things. We don't trust you, or it can be you already have your plates full. I am really excited about this development. Good move GoI.

The aim is clear; to increase competition and hence more efficiency in the PSUs and a warning bell to them. I am sure that the Joint Chiefs of Staff has something to do here which if true, is terrific. But I think that DRDO/ADA/HAL etc are being sent a message as to improve their structure and working style or suffer private competition.

To be frank, I am in favour of making DRDO private entirely under government supervision (as for all private firms). It will increase the pay of our scientists, free up more funds for R&D and profits and hence become an incentive for young generations to adopt weapons and strategic engineering courses.

 

[p2prada]

The requirement of such tanks, as of today, they said is estimated at about 25,000

That's 2500, maybe 2600 and not 25000. Since when did we become Soviet Union? We could swamp Pakistan completely with that many.

 

[venkat]

Along with privatization...corruption will be growing too...they try to pass off their shoddy stuff by bribing the quality inspectors of MOD...

 

[warriorextreme]

25000??
are we going to conquer whole world?
or army gonna start military rule

 

[Bangalorean]

Along with privatization...corruption will be growing too...they try to pass off their shoddy stuff by bribing the quality inspectors of MOD...

Sorry, I disagree with your overall assessment and statement of "shoddy stuff". Let me paste what I typed some days back here:

I present to you, the fact that DRDO has always been an incompetent and useless organization with a terrible work culture and horrible pay. It is a bloodsucking PSU, with typical Babu culture. Their track record is shitty, they have always overpromised and underdelivered. All talk of "DRDOs future plans" is bunkum, since they cannot deliver even 10% of what they promise on time and within budget.

As far as increasing salaries and benefits are concerned, lets get one thing clear - these government PSUs will never be able to match the private sector, and I don't expect them to do that anytime.

So what is the solution? The solution is to open the defence manufacturing and R&D industry to private participation. Why does the US have such power? It is because of their GEs and Haliburtons and Lockheeds and Boeings and Raytheons. We ought to let our own military industrial complex flourish in a similar fashion. We will never be a great power till we let that happen.

Open your eyes friends, look around you. All industries in India which have been opened to private participation have flourished - aviation, telecommunication, insurance, software... on the other hand, everything which still has a government monopoly is still the same as it was decades back.

Stop asking for our tax money to go down the drain by suggesting more salary, more benefit and more budget for DRDO. They can never match up to private industry anyway, and they won't deliver in any case. Start demanding the opening up of the manufacturing sector for private investment, lets build our own GEs and Boeings and BAE systems. Stop subsidizing sarkari white elephants.

And then, I wonder if we can trust the government firms to keep information confidential.

No, seriously. What prevents a low paid sarkari babu from accepting a bribe from the ISI/Chinese/anyone else and compromise valuable information? What prevents competent hackers from hacking into poorly maintained and inefficiently implemented government servers?

A private company knows that even one mistake will ruin their company and they will make sure that this does not happen. The onus is on them.

In India, all the decades of licence Raj socialistic thinking have conditioned us to think that the government is benign and benevolent while private businessmen are untrustworthy. This is the way our minds have been conditioned.

 

[p2prada]

Along with privatization...corruption will be growing too...they try to pass off their shoddy stuff by bribing the quality inspectors of MOD...

The Army will not accept that. Also we have a pretty big private industry involvement with the missile program. They have screwed up before, but it has more to do with carelessness than quality, like those messed up ring dimensions in the failed Agni test a couple of years back.

It has to be approved by MoD as well as Army for induction.

But Corruption will be difficult to watch over because of the secrecy involved.

 

[Rage]

This is clearly a bad reporting error. One, two zeroes too many.

The requirement is for 2,600 FICV's. No country on earth has ever had or planned to build 25,000 FICV's.

80% of the funding will come from the Exchequer. 20% from the private group.

The process is going to be one-off American. Two prototypes will be shortlisted from two entrants, with the winner chosen from comparative trials.

The timeline is 2018-2019. Let's see if the private sector can deliver.

 

[Tshering22]

^^ I think TATA, Mahindra, Ashok Leyland, Shrilakshmi Defence etc have done a wonderful job in launching light defence vehicles that has enabled us to go self-reliant on ground systems and even export to a couple of countries (Israel I suppose) as a Russian article once mentioned a few days back(sorry don't remember the analyst's name). If IFVs, ICVs and MGS are also allowed private participation from these type of companies, we will see a more robust defence infrastructure and a base for scientific development in our country. Today, everyone wants to be a doctor or an engineer. With more private participation, profits and hence better salaries, more youth will be interested in arms engineering and we will see a rapid growth of national defense.

I also heard about TDS (Tata Defense Systems) having a big contract and a significant part in F-INSAS project. I am sure they will deliver anything better than the sarkari dodos have been delivering so far; especially now that private firms are welcoming retired DRDO scientists as advisors with a red carpet (note: the Tejas program's one of chief scientists was welcomed sometime back by one of these 3-4 bigwigs some days back).

State Capitalism like China is impossible with our kind of myopic government; better to follow US model.

 

[sandeepdg]

1 Lakh crore and 25000 infantry vehicles ?? Surely is a reporting error, what the hell will we do with 25000 infantry combat vehicles ! And one lakh crore rupees is to big an amount to be spent on something like an infantry fighting vehicle, hell that's almost 70% of the entire defense budget of $30 billion. But the good thing is the involvement of the private sector, that will benefit the end users, the IA, in a big way by bringing in top notch quality hardware to satisfy their needs. Good strategy, I would say.

 

[bengalraider]

Good move that was long awaited, i would however go ahead and say that i believe that the order shall be split between two or more firms later on, with a FIRM such as TATA having more experience in building tracked vehicles taking the tracked vehicle orders while a firm such as the mahindras bagging the wheeled side!

On a side note below i post a few pictures of the first armored vehicle manufactured In India by private players, i give you the WW2 wonder called the TATANAGAR.

The Indians produced an Armoured Carrier Wheeled, Indian Pattern (ACV-IP) built by Tata Locomotives, and called it a 'Tatanagar'. At the outbreak of the World War II the United Kingdom was unable to meet the needs of the Commonwealth for armoured fighting vehicles. It led many Commonwealth countries to develop their own AFVs. As production of heavy armoured vehicles, such as tanks, required advanced industry which those countries lacked, most of the developed AFVs were armoured cars, often based on imported chassis.

In India a series of armoured vehicles was developed, known as Armoured Carrier, Wheeled, Indian Pattern or ACV-IP. These vehicles utilized Ford / GMC Canadian Military Pattern truck chassis imported from Canada. Armoured hulls were constructed mainly by Indian Railways (Tata). The armament typically consisted of Bren light machine gun, in some variants mounted in a small turret, and Boys anti-tank rifle. In production from 1940 until 1944, a total of 4,655 units were built.

The ACV-IP was used by Indian units in the Far East, Middle East, North African Campaign and Italian Campaign, typically in divisional reconnaissance regiments, as reconnaissance vehicle, personnel carrier, AA weapons carrier or Forward Observation Officer's vehicle.

 

[venkat]

Bangalorean... may be you are not aware of the level of corruption taking place while placing orders on pvt parties,during acceptance by inspectors etc... Shoddy stuff i repeat again... If you take Electronic Test & measuring instruments . which pvt manufacturer in India is meeting the Quality ,performance levels of Agilent(formerly HP),Tektronix,Rhode&Schwartz....etc? These are of course multinational giants....ours doesn't even come close to taiwanese made equipment...you take environmental chambers for instance , which are extensively used in qualification of avionics and other mil equipment...there is a marked difference in the performance and finish of international manufacturers from Germany,UK,USA and Italy from local makes...The pvt vendors try to grease the palms of the corrupt purchase ppl and try to grab the order by under quoting for shoddily fabricated equipment with poor quality.Pvt vendors are interested only in making fast buck with out any serious investment. why no pvt sector company in india has come forward to setup fab facilities for fabrication of integrated circuits, electronic components etc..?Fake components, half functioning equipment pretty common things ....99.9 % components used in the defence electronic equipment have to come from abroad...I am not saying everything Indian is bad and phoren maal is good.. Our mentality of make hay while sun shines should change.

 

[Godless-Kafir]

Good move that was long awaited, i would however go ahead and say that i believe that the order shall be split between two or more firms later on, with a FIRM such as TATA having more experience in building tracked vehicles taking the tracked vehicle orders while a firm such as the mahindras bagging the wheeled side!

On a side note below i post a few pictures of the first armored vehicle manufactured In India by private players, i give you the WW2 wonder called the TATANAGAR.

You know what, with such beautiful sloping design and with today's metallurgy this design can still give a run for the Humvee kinds!

 

[shuvo@y2k10]

with 25000 ficv we can surely conquer the rest of the world.also 1 lakh crore is not a huge amount when it comes to defence industry.i think private players should also collborate in the fmbt project and future towed,self propelled indegeneous artillery,future uav projects.even the ww2 apc looks dam cool.

 

[Bangalorean]

Bangalorean... may be you are not aware of the level of corruption taking place while placing orders on pvt parties,during acceptance by inspectors etc... Shoddy stuff i repeat again... If you take Electronic Test & measuring instruments . which pvt manufacturer in India is meeting the Quality ,performance levels of Agilent(formerly HP),Tektronix,Rhode&Schwartz....etc? These are of course multinational giants....ours doesn't even come close to taiwanese made equipment...you take environmental chambers for instance , which are extensively used in qualification of avionics and other mil equipment...there is a marked difference in the performance and finish of international manufacturers from Germany,UK,USA and Italy from local makes...The pvt vendors try to grease the palms of the corrupt purchase ppl and try to grab the order by under quoting for shoddily fabricated equipment with poor quality.Pvt vendors are interested only in making fast buck with out any serious investment. why no pvt sector company in india has come forward to setup fab facilities for fabrication of integrated circuits, electronic components etc..?Fake components, half functioning equipment pretty common things ....99.9 % components used in the defence electronic equipment have to come from abroad...I am not saying everything Indian is bad and phoren maal is good.. Our mentality of make hay while sun shines should change.

Anything will be better than the crap that DRDO has been dishing out! The armed forces will not induct malfunctioning or inferior equipment. As in any other venture, the customer is king, and here the customer happens to be the armed forces.

 

[sukhoi30mki]

its great initiative by government as this give private defense players confidence,
whatever PSU produce ,is not sufficient for our forces, India is largest importer of arms.
in USA there is no PSU like India and they are more successful because of excellent R&D work by
private players like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and many more due to competition between them.
US army and air force getting excellent machine to operate.
our DRDO is good but can not do everything.
we can enjoy materials which are state of the art and made in India with the help of privatization.
as same as we are enjoying cheaper call rates in telecom..
DRDO taken 27 years for Tejas stil it fly with US made engine.
Private players can do something as they have excellent potential.

 

[Friend]

Less than 1.7 l cr 2G scam hope it doesnt turn out into one.