The Indian army will be massively armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles. Yesterday, November 23, the portal indiatimes.com He reported that the Defense Procurement Council under the Ministry of Defense of India officially approved the purchase of hundreds of thousands of AK-203.
The Defense Procurement Council made its decision on the eve of the arrival of the Russian president in India. According to unofficial information, it is at the meeting of the leaders of the two states, which will be held in December, that the final contract for the transfer of technology and the start of production of the AK-203 in India will be signed.
Testing of AK-203
According to the portal janes.com India managed to defend its requirements for the contract. "After several months of lengthy negotiations, Russia decided to abandon the license fee clause in the contract in accordance with the requirements of India," said former Brigadier General Rahul Bhonsl of the Security-Risks consulting company in New Delhi. According to him, production will begin in the first quarter of 2022.
At the same time, Indian sources give different figures of production volumes. So, the portal indiatimes.com writes about 750,000 units, of which 70,000 will be delivered from Russia assembled or in the form of components. On the website indiatoday.in the figure is indicated in 601,427 locally assembled machines and 70,000 delivered from Russia. The third digit gives janes.com - 700,000 machines for 51.24 billion Indian rupees ($687.7 million). At the same time, it is not indicated whether these figures include the previously ordered 70,000 machines.
India and the Russian Federation have been working on a project for the joint production of AK-203 assault rifles in India since 2018. In March of this year, Dmitry Shugaev, head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC) of the Russian Federation, said that negotiations with India on a plant for the production of AK-203 submachine guns were continuing, but no final contract was signed.
The weapons factory was founded back in 2007, it was planned that it would start working three years later. But the process of putting the enterprise into operation was greatly delayed due to the unresolved issue of the model of the manufactured weapons. The official opening of the plant was reported in 2019, but serial production was never launched there. Then it was said that the joint venture Indo-Russian Rifles Private Ltd will produce AK-203 7.62×39 mm caliber assault rifles. It was planned that about 700,000 AK-203s would be assembled at the new plant with a phased increase in localization, and another 50,000 submachine guns would be imported to India from Russia.
