You are looking thru a different perspective.
Keep yourself in place of any company commander who wants to haul Arty shells to forward position. In this case, would you prefer a two truck haul or one? Obviously one truck haul of PGMunitions are much more cheaper then two truck haul of conventional munition.
In second scenario where you are hauling Arty shells to indomitable heights through choppers, what would you prefer? A chopper carrying a load of 50 odd shells with enough space for extra rations and small arms munition or a chopper carrying choc-a-bloc load of arty shell?
Other then manufacturing cost, what count most is logistical cost too. Moreover keep yourself in place of an any observer in forward position who is guiding the arty fire at enemy position from a mere distance. What would you prefer, a dumb unguided shell racing towards you with 50-50 chance of hitting the target or a guided shell with 90% probability of hitting the target.
Moreover fitting a PGK in any conventional shell would not increase its cost by 50 or 100 times. Cost of 45 lakhs or 16 lakhs is true for imported shells, but in house development of it would not cost this much. Anyway India right now is using Krasnopol which is no doubt costly. But if we could design it inhouse, the cost factor would come down immensely. But then too it could cost 2 to 3 times of current conventional one. But anyway precision doesn't come cheap.
