Coming soon: 73,000 more US Sig Sauer rifles for India

Faced with a crucial shortage of standard-issue rifles, India is poised to soon place an order for another batch of US-made Sig Sauer assault rifles, reports Sanjib Kr Baruah

New Delhi: India is on the verge of sealing another order for 73,000 Sig Sauer 716i assault guns from the US, a security establishment source has told ETV Bharat.

“Except for the final approval, everything on the repeat order of Sig Sauer assault guns is locked and sealed. The Defence Ministry’s clearance, price negotiations… everything has been completed. One is just waiting for the final ok which is expected soon,” said a senior source in the Indian security establishment on condition of anonymity. The final okay translates to clearance from the Union Cabinet.

Negating recent reports that there would be no repeat orders of the Sig Sauer assault gun due to ‘performance issues’, the source said: “There is no question of the deal not taking place. It is absolutely in the final stages.” The first consignment of these assault rifles totalling 72,400 had begun arriving from last year onwards and had been first given to frontline troops manning the eastern Ladakh border with China and those deployed for counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir.

Of the 72,400, the Army was to get 66,400, the IAF 4,000, and 2,000 for the Navy. The US guns were being brought to quickly replace the controversial locally-manufactured INSAS (Indian National Small Arms Systems) rifles which had reported a ‘range of issues’. The three armed forces together face a total small-arms shortage of about 7,40,000 assault rifles, 3,50,000 close-quarter battle carbines, 41,000 Light Machine Guns (LMGs), and more than 5,700 high-precision sniper rifles.

After the off-the-shelf buys from abroad, the balance was to be made in production lines in India. In July 2021, India and Russia had inked an agreement to jointly produce AK 203 assault rifles. While about 1,00,000 AK 203 assault guns will be purchased straight from Russia, subsequent quantities at the rate of about 75,000 rifles per year was to be produced in a factory in Korwa, in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi.

The guns were to be produced by the Indo-Russia Rifles Private Limited (IRRPL), a collaborative affair between the state-run Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) which will invest 50.5 per cent with the Kalashnikov Concern and Rosoboronexport contributing 42 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively. But it is learnt that the AK 203 project is still in the pre-production trials stage and is not picking up speed due to the breakout of the Ukraine conflict with Russia. In the meantime, in August 2021, India signed an agreement with Russia for buying 70,000 AK 103 rifles.

While the DRDO-made INSAS did not prove to be a success in its first full-scale combat in Kargil, the Army Commanders’ Conference in September 2015 suggested an urgent calibre change of the basic mainstay weapon from 5.56 mm to 7.62 mm. Both the Sig Sauer 716i and the AK 203 are 7.62 mm calibre rifles, while the INSAS is a 5.56 mm gun.