Article Posted on : - Aug 30, 2011

Arjun Main Battle Tank. A file photo.

NEW DELHI (PTI): The government on Monday said that the DRDO had carried out trials of Mark-II version of Arjun- main battle tank (MBT) in Rajasthan.

"Limited technical trials with some major and minor improvements on MBT Arjun Mark-I, as part of MBT Arjun Mark-II, have been carried out by the DRDO in deserts of Rajasthan," Defence Minister A K Antony told the Lok Sabha while replying to a question.

He said the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has cleared the proposal for placement of indent for 124-MBT Arjun Mark-II on Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF), Avadi, Chennai.

"Placement of indent by Army on Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) is being further processed and the likely estimated cost of each MBT Arjun Mark-II with all major and minor improvements will be approximately Rs 37 crore," Antony said.

The first batch of MBT Arjun Mark-II is likely to undergo production by 2015, he said.

To another question on the status of Advanced Computing System (ACS) being undertaken by the DRDO, Antony said, "DRDO has undertaken upgradation of High Performance Computing (HPC) facility, Chitra to provide sustained computing speed of 32- teraflops and designing of Advanced System-on-Chips (SOCs)."

The facility of HPC, Chitra will be used for computational fluid dynamics application, structural analysis and material science simulations whereas, the SOCs will be used for wearable computer applications.

"The HPC Facility is likely to be operational by December 2011, whereas, SOCs will be completed by June 2013," he said.