Bharat Forge has emerged as the lower bidder (L1) for an Army procurement tender where its close quarter battle carbine (CQB) - manufactured by subsidiary Kalyani Strategic System and designed by Defence Research and Development Organisation - made the cut, DRDO informed on June 23.
Shares of Bharat Forge are sharply higher by over a percent in a weak market, following the news.
The size of the order is not officially known, however, some news reports have pegged it at close to Rs 2,000 crore, potentially making it the biggest single order for carbines since the induction of the INSAS files more than decades ago. It is expected that the Indian Army will be procuring more than four lakh such carbines as part of the tender.
"Significantly boosting #atmanirbharta in critical technology, 5.56x45 mm CQB Carbine, designed and developed by Armament Research and Development Establishment(ARDE), DRDO and produced by @BharatForgeLtd selected as L1 in #IndianArmy RFP," DRDO said in a social media post.
This close combat weapon meets the Indian Army's long-pending requirement for a compact and modern close-combat gun, and will be an important step up for Bharat Forge's subsidiary Kalyani Strategic Systems (KSS) to emerge as a reliable domestic defence manufacturing partner. KSS had recorded most of its revenue during the March quarter through exports. Bharat Forge has said that it expects a 15-20% growth in FY26 orderbook, with a lot of opportunities both in domestic markets as well as for exports. The company has a defence order book of almost Rs 9,500 crore. Bharat Forge's CFO Kedar Dixit had said in May that the last fiscal for export-led for KSS, and the big domestic defence orders are yet to commence. During FY25, Bharat Forge secured new business worth Rs 6,959 crore across all businesses, and defense orders were about Rs 5,000 crore.
The L1 order is also significant step in the public-private partnership in defence manufacturing, and are expected to replace the ageing 9 mm carbines for Indian Army.
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