Army to get AK-203 assault rifles manufactured in Amethi soon

LUCKNOW : With Amethi district all set to roll out five lakh AK-203 series assault rifles from its manufacturing unit in Korwa, the defence manufacturing sector in Uttar Pradesh will get a major boost. The Centre has approved a plan to produce these AK-203 series assault rifles at Korwa and the production will start soon, said the state government in a statement issued on Saturday. At Korwa, Hindustan Aeronautics

Limited’s (HAL) avionics division is based.

The project is a joint venture with the Russian government under the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Modi government. According to government officials, the 7.62 X 39mm calibre AK-203 rifles will replace in-service INSAS rifles which were induced over three decades ago. As per defence experts, the AK-203 assault rifles have an effective range of 300 metres and are lightweight.

They will enhance operational effectiveness of the

Indian Army in counter insurgency operations in the Kashmir valley, they say.

According to senior officials of the state government, the project will be implemented by a special purpose joint venture named Indo-Russian Rifles Private Ltd (IRRPL). It was set up with the erstwhile Ordnance Factory Board which is now Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited (AWEIL) and Munitions India Limited (MIL)] of India and Rosoboronexport (RoE) of Russia.

The RoE is the only intermediary in Russia for exports and imports of the entire range of products, technologies and services of military and dual-use. This project is in addition to the Defence Industrial Corridor project of the state government.

On February 21, 2018, PM Narendra Modi had announced Rs 20,000 crore defence industrial corridor in Bundelkhand region which is considered as one of the most backward regions in the state. The corridor has six nodes, including Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, Chitrakoot, Kanpur and Lucknow.