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K9 VAJRA-T PROGRAMME

DELIVERIES AHEAD OF

SCHEDULE

L&T Defence recently rolled out the [ DEFEXPO SHOW PREVIEW ]
51st ‘K9 Vajra-T’ 155 mm 52 Cal Self-
propelled Tracked Howitzer (SPH)
from its newly established green-field
Armoured System Complex (ASC) for
manufacturing – integration – testing
complex at Hazira in Gujarat. India’s
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh
flagged-off the 51st K9 VAJRA-T Gun,
which was dispatched months ahead
of contractual delivery and in keeping
with the ahead-of-time deliveries of
the first 50 guns in the K9 VAJRA-T
programme.

“OUR DEFENCE TEAM HAS
ONCE AGAIN DEMONSTRATED Army contract for 100 ‘K9 VAJRA-T’ Support Package (ESP) covering
L&T’S ENGINEERING AND SPHs. The first 10 K9 SPH were deliv- spares, documentation and train-
EXECUTION PROWESS ered by Hanwha Techwin of South ing and Maintenance Transfer of
IN BUILDING THIS MOST Korea in Semi Knocked Down (SKD) Technology (MToT) to the Army
ADVANCED WEAPON SYSTEM state and then assembled in India by Base Workshop to support the
TO THE EXACTING LEVELS OF L&T. The following guns were largely Howitzer regiments throughout
QUALITY WHILE ENSURING manufactured in India with some their life cycle. The ‘K9 VAJRA-T’
ON TIME DELIVERY. THE major assemblies coming from South systems are being delivered with
HAZIRA MANUFACTURING Korea. This contract is the largest 50 per cent indigenous content (by
COMPLEX HAS SET VARIOUS contract through global competitive value) which includes 75 per cent
INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY bidding awarded to an Indian private indigenous work packages at the
programme level and involves local
company by the Ministry of Defence
AND MANUFACTURING (MoD). production of over 13,000 compo-
BENCHMARKS AND THE K9 nents per gun system through a
VAJRA IS CERTAINLY ONE The delivery of 100 K9 Vajra-Ts was supply chain of about 500 Indian
OF THEM,” A.M. Naik, Group originally to have been completed in Tier-1 manufacturers with over 100
Chairman L&T. 42 months and L&T Defence is also of them from the MSME segment.
L&T Defence is executing an Indian tasked with providing the Engineering
Built by South Korea’s largest
defence company Hanwha, the
K9 SPH was developed to meet
Indian Army specifications along
with L&T and the Korean firm also
enabled indigenous manufactur-
ing of the self-propelled howitzer
in India by L&T Defence by training
a team of engineers and integra-
tion specialists at Hanwha facilities.
Subsequently, this team trained
our supply chain partners as well
as own extended teams. L&T has
put in sustained efforts and inno-
vation in indigenising ‘K9 VAJRA-T’,
right from the prototype built for
user evaluation trials by indige-

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