The Acquisition Wing of the Defence Ministry has signed a Rs 1,075 crore contract with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) for the retro-modification of Commander Sight of Battle Tanks-T-90. The retro-modification will be carried out in 957 T-90 tanks of the Indian Army.

This will provide a further boost to the 'Make in India' initiative of the government in the defence sector.

Commander sight of Battle Tank T-90, which is India's premier battle tank, is presently fitted with Image Converter tube-based sight for night viewing. Based on the requirement projected by the Indian Army, DRDO and BEL have jointly designed and developed an advanced Mid Wave Thermal Image-based sight as a replacement for the existing IC-based sight.

The new retro-modified Commander sight employs a thermal imager capable of detecting the targets at 8 kilometres during day and night and a Laser Ranger Finder to find the ranges accurately up to 5 kilometres. With the corrections from ballistic software and LRF, the Commander of T-90 can detect, engage and neutralize the targets with phenomenal accuracy. The indigenously developed sight completed extensive evaluations under field conditions successfully.