Indigenous Standard For Indian Army’s Safety: India Gets Own Quality Mark For Bullet Proof Jackets

After a long time India will have its own standard for body armour as the first-ever Indian Standard (IS) on Bullet Proof Jackets (BPJ) was released on Thursday (10 January), Financial Express has reported.

According to the report, IS17051:2018 was finalised as the standard for Bullet proof jackets. The standard prescribes minimum requirements of BPJ against small arms and their evaluation procedures.

The standard has been adopted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) after Textile Divisional Council’s approval of the finalised draft of Textiles Protective Clothing Sectional Committee.

Adoption of the standard will not only set minimum performance requirements of bullet proof jackets but will also help in screening their supply to ensure that only acceptable quality reaches the user.

“Our work begins now as we have the indigenous capacity to go to the next level, i.e. use of lighter material for jackets. The standard could become a base to supply the jackets to South East Asia where the requirements are similar to India’s.” Director General, BIS, Surina Rajan, was quoted in the report as saying.

As per the report, the standard has been customised in accordance with the requirements of India and would result in less casualties of the security force personnel.