Indian Army’s Special Forces To Be Better-Equipped: US Assault Rifles, Ammunition, Parachutes Acquisition In Pipeline

The government has decided to buy assault rifles, ammunition, parachutes and several other specialised equipments for the special forces of Indian Army from the United States, according to sources, ANI has reported.

"Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is going to chair an important meeting where the proposal to buy the equipment worth over Rs 1,000 crore from the American Department of Defence is expected to be discussed," sources were quoted in the report as saying.

According to the report, during the meeting, the Defence Minister will discuss several types of equipments including assault rifles, ammunition and combat free fall parachutes for the special forces units of the Parachute Regiment of the Army, sources said.

"If the proposal goes through, the equipment would be acquired from the United States in a government-to-government deal under the Foreign Military Sales route," they added.

As per the report, the Indian Army is already using the American M4A1 assault rifles, that is being used extensively by security forces in the counter-terrorism operations.

The government is reportedly also planning to equip the Army special forces with more carbines. These will be similar to the Belgian rifles which are used by the Special Protection Group (SPG) guarding the Prime Minister.