Officials said the capital procurement for the defence services amount to about Rs 2,355 crore. A major part of this includes grenades for the army

NEW DELHI: The Defence Acquisition Council chaired by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday cleared capital procurement worth over Rs 2,000 crore, including ‘multi-mode’ hand grenades and modernisation of naval aircraft yards at India’s western seaboard.

Officials said the capital procurement for the defence services amount to about Rs 2,355 crore. A major part of this includes grenades for the army.

“Approval was accorded for procurement of the Defence Research and Development Organisation developed multi-mode hand grenades from the private industry,” said an official. Sources said that there are two types of multi-mode grenades- lethal and nonlethal.

The lethal one is a fragmentation grenade that is meant to kill by the shrapnel. The non-lethal one acts as a stun grenade, which is used for room intervention operations and reduces casualties in densely populated areas while taking down terrorists.

“Currently, army units in counter-terrorism roles have fragmentation grenades and require stun grenades,” said the official.