Arjun is again battling against Bhishma. This is to prove how Arjun compares against Bhishma. Can Arjun win again?

The Indian army christened Russian battle (T-90S) tanks as ‘Bhishma’. DRDO has developed Arjun, the main battle tanks. Even after many tests and trials, the army has not agreed to accept Arjuns and has raised many apprehensions about its specifications and performance.

As reported, to end the debates between army and DRDO, ‘Russian-origin T-90S main battle tanks (MBTs) and indigenous Arjun tanks will finally kick off its performance tests in the Thar Desert in March-April’ for arriving at the comparative performances of the two.

The Army does not want more than the 124 Arjuns that it has already ordered, while it requires 1,781 MBTs to replace the older T-55 and T-72 tanks. The army wants to import 1,657 T-90S tanks.

DRDO, however, wants Army to order a minimum of 500 Arjuns to stabilize production lines and pave the way for the development of a “futuristic” MBT.

As reported, the present cost of one Arjun is Rs 16-17 crore, while it is around Rs 12-14 crore for the T-90S. I am sure Indian engineers can come out with many innovations and make it cost competitive with Russian tanks.

According to DRDO, the army has been frequently changing “qualitative requirements” of the MBT. I doubt if the engineering talent and manufacturing facilities in India can’t meet the army requirements, if the technocrats in army cooperate with the technical experts of DRDO and other vendors.

Many even opine that the army or for that matter everyone in the defense departments responsible for procurements prefer to import its major equipment for unknown reasons.

Are the foreign vendors using some underhand methods with favours of cash and kinds to those in decision making process to get the orders? India is having a very poor reputation of corrupt practices in doing business with the foreign companies.

I have different logic for getting indigenous products and equipment. The volume production of Arjun can boost the country’s manufacturing sector.

No one wishes that the country gets poorer defence equipment because of the emotional decision in favour of the locally developed main battle tanks. But at the same time none will like the men in army to obstruct the project unnecessarily.