Pune: The concept of the Indian Army's light tank project has been realised and is currently undergoing trials, according to Jayant D Patil, adviser to CMD, Larsen and Toubro.

Speaking to ANI on Indian Army's light tank project, Patil said, "The concept of light tanks has been realised and is currently undergoing trials".

"Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and L&T came together for the development of the light tank. Each one of us could do it independently, but it would have taken a long time. By coming together, this became the world's first battle tank from concept to building and getting in trials has happened in a record 19 months," he added.

He made the remarks on the sidelines of the three-day Maharashtra MSME Defence Expo 2024, inaugurated on Friday in Pune.

He said that they are building the reliability of the tanks through a lot of running. "Hopefully, this tank now started getting into higher and higher levels of involvement."

Referring to a recent statement of Chief of Army Staff (General Manoj Pande), he said, "As the Chief of Army Staff recently said, by this summer, this tank will be in Army trials and we are looking forward to it".

"We are currently maturing the tanks through multiple trials, building their reliability through a lot of running...," Patil said, adding that, "the tank today exists."

On how he does see the ecosystem shaping up for the defence companies in the country, he said, "We do not produce end-to-end everything in the house. Now it has been part of my business model right from my early days that typically 40-50 per cent of the actual work, we have been using MSME's".

"So my every factory typically has a supply chain of about 1500-2000 MSME's partners," he said.

On Prime Minister Narendra Modi's emphasizing on increasing the exports from the country and any export successes L&T has achieved, he said, "L&T has been at the forefront of the exports. Because we have been designing and building in India."

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