The Army will begun inducting the first lot of 6,000 new Light Machine Guns (LMG) from Israel, with frontline troops on the borders set to receive them later this month.
These are part of the 16,497 Negev LMGs contracted from Israeli Weapons Industry (IWI) in March 2020 under fast track procurement to meet the immediate requirement. The remaining guns in the order will be delivered by March 2022, an Army official said.
The first lot of 6,000 guns arrived in Mumbai in the second week of January and were transported to Jabalpur to complete inspection and handing over formalities. They are now ready for induction, the official said.
The larger share of the overall requirement, 70% or 40,949 LMGs, would be procured domestically from the private sector, the official said. The process for that has been initiated and the Field Evaluation Trial (FET) at the pre-trial stage is progressing.
The Army has an urgent requirement for a range of small arms and after repeated delays in the procurement process is now in the process of inducting them.
