Sitharaman hands over indigenised tank engines to army

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday handed over to Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Devaraj Anbu the two variants of indigenised multi-fuel engines to power the two main battle tanks of the Army, an official statement said.

The engines are being made by the Engine Factory Avadi (EFA) in Chennai in Tamil Nadu as part of the Ordnance Factory Board under the 'Make in India' programme, a Defence Ministry statement said.

Though these engines are based on Russian design, India was dependent on Russia for certain critical assemblies like turbocharger, supercharger, fuel injection pumps and others.

These engines will be used in T-90 Bhishma and T-72 Ajeya tanks.

Now that the EFA has indigenised these critical components, it will lead to savings of Rs 33 lakh in case of one T-90 engine and Rs 9.75 lakh for one T-72 engine.

EFA General Manager Anil Kumar said the unit will attain the full indigenisation of UTD-20 engine for Sarath tank in this fiscal.

During 2018-19, EFA is geared up to cross the 800 engines target for armoured vehicles.

--IANS

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