By N. C. Bipindra
New Delhi: India is taking its fight against insurgents and terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir to the next level by deploying robots to do the work, in a bid to save human lives and to achieve accuracy in eliminating threats.
The Indian Army today issued a tender for buying approximately 550 robotic surveillance platform that can delivery suitable munitions at intended targets after carrying out surveillance of built-up areas in the terrorist-infested Jammu and Kashmir.
This procurement effort, though unrelated, comes just short of three months after India’s Parliament approved an amendment to Article 370 of the Constitution of India that granted autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir. The Narendra Modi government also bifurcated the erstwhile state and turned it into two Union territories, including Ladakh.
The Robotic Surveillance Platform, to be bought under the ‘Make’ procedure of the Defence Procurement Procedure-2016, will be acquired only from an Indian vendor, according to the tender documents Defence.Capital has reviewed.
The platform is for arming the Rashtriya Rifles, a specialised counter-insurgency unit of the Indian Army, specifically deployed in Jammu and Kashmir.
The robotic platform would provide for real-time intelligence inputs for Rashtriya Rifles operations in Built Up Areas (BUA), help in avoiding casualty to Indian troops during initial breach, precisely deliver suitable munition at the targets, and enable dynamic real-time monitoring of terrorists activities during operations, the tender document said.
The robotic platform would be man-portable and the Indian troopers would carry and manually deploy it by throwing it closer to the search area.
The Ministry of Defence will interact with those Indian vendors responding to the tender on Nov. 18.
