Strategic tie-up to develop optronic devices, close quarter battle rifles for Army

Chennai: MKU Limited, a leading defence company in India with a footprint in over 100 countries; and Thales, delivering extraordinary high technology solutions; have signed two MoUs for strategic co-operation in the development and production of optronic devices and F90 close quarter battle (CQB) rifles for the Indian Army.

The co-operation will help to enhance the night fighting capabilities of the Indian Army and homeland security forces. It envisages the manufacture of optronics equipment including weapon sights, night vision goggles, handheld thermal imagers and thermal infrared sensor engine for soldier systems, and other image intensification and thermal imaging systems for soldiers and platforms respectively. The optronic devices will be co-developed by Thales and MKU and both the optronic devices and F90 rifles will be manufactured in India at MKU’s facilities in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

These products will be offered to the Indian army and homeland security forces under the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Centre. For weapons, the two companies plan to cooperate so that MKU could set-up an assembly and manufacturing plant in India for the carbine version of the F90 assault rifle, combat-proven and already in service with Australian Defence Forces. Light, balanced and accurate, the F90 CQB rifles developed with MKU will be well suited to Indian conditions and requirements. 

“MKU is pleased to sign the strategic co-operation MoUs with Thales. This partnership will not only focus on meeting the requirements of our forces in India, but will also look at exporting the products to other parts of the world” says Neeraj Gupta, MD of MKU.

“We are very pleased to work in close collaboration with MKU for the development of weapons and optronic devices to address specific needs of the Indian and international markets. This co-development partnership reaffirms our commitment to India and is the result of our ambition to support soldiers on operations,”Alex Cresswell, senior executive Vice-President for Land & Air Systems at Thales said.

MKU, a global leader in the manufacture of ballistic solutions for personnel and platforms, is currently executing an Indian MoD contract for 158,279 ballistic helmets for the Indian Army and Navy. 

It has already announced plans to diversify into weapon systems and will be setting up a manufacturing facility for the same in the newly announced defence corridor in UP.

Present in India since 1953, New Delhi headquartered Thales has other operational offices and sites spread across Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Mumbai, and has been playing an essential role in India's growth story by sharing its technologies and expertise in defence, transport and aerospace markets.