The Defence Acquisition Council has approved the signing of contract for the purchase of 72,400 Sig Sauer SiG 716 assault rifles for the Indian Army under a fast tracked procurement programme.

Highly placed sources in the Ministry indicated that the contract would be signed within a week. The value of the contract was not specified.

The procurement of the SiG 716 will set in motion the process to replace the INSAS assault rifle and the entire range of small arms weaponry of the Indian Army. The Sig Sauer will be the first American Infantry weapon for the Indian Army in over five decades.

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on January 10 announced that a slew of contracts is in the offing this year to modernise Infantry weaponry.

Sig Sauer's offer for the SiG 716, which fires a 7.62 mm round, emerged the lowest bid (L1) in a competition also involving Russia's Kalashnikov, Arsenal, Israel's IWI and UAE's Caracel.

"A separate process is underway for a Make in India programme to produce assault rifles in much larger numbers," General Rawat had told this reporter. The number is learnt to be 650,000. While the Army Chief did not mention details, it has been reported recently that a Government-to-Government deal with Russia may be in the works to produce the AK-103 in collaboration with the Government's Ordnance Factory Board

"A separate process is underway for a Make in India programme to produce assault rifles in much larger numbers," General Rawat had told this reporter. The number is learnt to be 650,000. While the Army Chief did not mention details, it has been reported recently that a Government-to-Government deal with Russia may be in the works to produce the AK-103 in collaboration with the Government's Ordnance Factory Board.

It is also learnt that a fast tracked contract with a Caracal, a UAE-based company, for 93,895 carbines too is close to being signed. The imported Caracal carbine will begin the replacement process for the vintage 9 mm Sterling carbine. Under a separate Make in India programme, an additional 350,000 carbines will be acquired. The companies bidding for the Make in India carbine programme include Caracel, Colt, IWI, S&T Motiv and Baretta.

There's yet another programme for acquiring 16,800 Light Machine Guns.

The Indian Army is also acquiring new sniper rifles, which General Rawat described as "the best in the world". These are the Italian Baretta Lapua Magnum and the American Barret M95. Under a plan similar to those for the acquisition of assault rifles and carbines, the initial lot are being imported to meet the requirements of the Northern Command, which is hard pressed by Pakistani sniper attacks on the Line of Control and wants to upgrade its ability to take counter measures. A bigger procurement of over 5,000 sniper guns is being processed as a capital acquisitions programme by the Ministry of Defence.