India's battle tank unit HVF targets Rs 2,400 cr revenue

The Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF) that rolls out battle tanks for India is in the process of developing new vendors while hoping to close this fiscal with a revenue of around Rs 2,400 crore, a top official said on Friday.

"We are in the process of developing new vendors for the components where there was only one vendor. We are developing Lucas TVS as a second vendor for one of the battle tank systems," Hari Mohan, Senior General Manager, told reporters on the side lines of a conference here.

According to Mohan, the HVF logged a turnover of Rs 1,500 crore last fiscal and the current year target is around Rs 2,400 crore.

"The next year revenue will be around Rs 3,000 crore and our order book position is full till the year 2035," he said.

Speaking at the conference earlier on 'Defence Manufacturing Technologies - Defence Indigenisation - Window of Opportunities', organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Mohan said the HVF procures components worth Rs 600 crore in all and of that around Rs 350 crore-worth is sourced from domestic industry partners.

HVF has around 300 industry partners of which over 100 are located in Tamil Nadu, Mohan said.

A battle tank is not an easy vehicle to make -- while the vehicle control is at the bottom, the entire gun control is on the rotating turret. The safety (thickness of the body steel plate), speed and the firing power are mutually exclusive, he added.

"The battle tank speed will be less if its body plates are thick... but a thick armour plate increases the safety of the battle tank," he said.

--IANS

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