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Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav performed the Bhoomi Pujan for the T-Series Tanks Overhaul Project at Vehicle Factory, Jabalpur on 27 August 2026.
The project creates overhauling facilities for T-72 and T-90 tanks at an estimated cost of Rs 472 crore, with a designed capacity of 80 tanks per annum.
Vehicle Factory Jabalpur is a unit of Armoured Vehicles Nigam Limited (AVNL), a Miniratna Defence Public Sector Undertaking created when the Ordnance Factory Board was corporatised.
The Indian Army requires 230 tanks to be overhauled every year, and Heavy Vehicles Factory, Avadi currently has capacity for 150 a year, so Jabalpur closes most of the remaining gap.
The Raksha Mantri placed the project against defence production of about Rs 1.80 lakh crore in FY 2025-26, up from Rs 46,000 crore in 2014, and defence exports of about Rs 39,000 crore, up from under Rs 1,000 crore.
Miniratna Defence PSU that manufactures and overhauls armoured fighting vehicles, main battle tanks, military vehicles and their engines. Incorporated as a wholly owned Government of India company under the Companies Act, 2013 on 14 August 2021 and began operations on 1 October 2021. Its units are Heavy Vehicles Factory Avadi, Engine Factory Avadi, Vehicle Factory Jabalpur, Ordnance Factory Medak and Machine Tool Prototype Factory Ambernath.
AVNL unit set up in 1969 to meet the transport needs of the armed forces, originally producing the Shaktiman truck with MAN of Germany and the Nissan one-tonne and Jonga vehicles with Nissan Motors of Japan. Its core competence is transmission assemblies and gears - main and auxiliary gear boxes, front and rear axles. It now adds T-series tank overhaul.
India's main battle tank production centre and the other AVNL unit named in the release. It licence-builds the T-90 Bhishma, built the T-72 Ajeya, and holds the order for the Arjun Mk-1A. It currently overhauls 150 tanks a year.
The DRDO laboratory that designed and developed the Arjun main battle tank and its Mk-1A variant - the indigenous counterpart to the licence-built T-series fleet.
Department of the Ministry of Defence that owns the Defence PSUs, notifies the positive indigenisation lists for DPSUs and steers defence-industrial policy. Represented at the ceremony by Secretary (Defence Production) Sanjeev Kumar.
Convert a departmental production organisation into corporate entities with commercial accountability, so that ordnance factories could be measured on cost, quality and delivery.
Key: The Union Cabinet approved the restructuring on 16 June 2021 and the OFB was dissolved with effect from 1 October 2021. Its 41 factories and roughly 70,000 employees were transferred to seven new Defence PSUs: Munitions India Limited, Armoured Vehicles Nigam Limited, Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited, Troop Comforts Limited, Yantra India Limited, India Optel Limited and Gliders India Limited. Service conditions of transferred employees were protected and pension liabilities continue to be met from the defence budget.
Bar the import of listed defence items after stated timelines so that domestic industry gets an assured order book.
Key: Two parallel sets exist and are frequently confused. The Department of Military Affairs notifies lists of weapons and platforms for the armed forces - five lists covering 509 items. The Department of Defence Production notifies lists of line replacement units, sub-systems, assemblies and components for the Defence PSUs; its fifth such list, of 346 items, was notified in July 2024. Tank overhaul work of the kind now coming to Jabalpur draws on exactly this component ecosystem.
Field an indigenously designed main battle tank alongside the licence-built T-series fleet.
Key: Designed and developed by CVRDE with other DRDO laboratories, the Mk-1A adds 72 new features and higher indigenous content over the Arjun Mk-1. The Ministry of Defence placed an order for 118 Arjun Mk-1A tanks worth Rs 7,523 crore on Heavy Vehicles Factory, Avadi on 23 September 2021.
Grant graded financial and operational autonomy to profitable central public sector enterprises.
Key: Administered by the Department of Public Enterprises. Miniratna Category-I requires the CPSE to have made profit in each of the last three years, a pre-tax profit of Rs 30 crore or more in at least one of those years, and a positive net worth; Category-II requires three continuous years of profit and a positive net worth. Above these sit Navratna and Maharatna, the latter requiring an average annual turnover above Rs 25,000 crore, average net worth above Rs 15,000 crore and average net profit after tax above Rs 5,000 crore over three years, plus significant global presence. AVNL is a Miniratna DPSU.
| Aspect | T-72 Ajeya | T-90 Bhishma | Arjun Mk-1A |
|---|---|---|---|
| Origin of design | Soviet/Russian T-72M1, licence-produced in India | Russian T-90S, licence-produced in India | Indigenous - designed by CVRDE with DRDO laboratories |
| Indian production began | Late 1970s, at Avadi | 2004, at Heavy Vehicles Factory Avadi | Order for 118 Mk-1A placed on HVF Avadi on 23 September 2021 |
| Builder today | AVNL, Heavy Vehicles Factory Avadi | AVNL, Heavy Vehicles Factory Avadi | AVNL, Heavy Vehicles Factory Avadi |
| Engine | V-46-6, produced by Engine Factory Avadi | V92S2, produced by Engine Factory Avadi | Imported powerpack on the Mk-1 and Mk-1A |
| Distinguishing point for exams | The older of the two T-series tanks in service | The numerically dominant modern tank of the armoured corps | The indigenous design; the Mk-1A adds 72 new features over the Mk-1 |
An overhaul is not a modernisation. A tank returning for base overhaul is stripped to its major assemblies - hull, turret, powerpack, transmission, running gear and fire control - which are inspected, repaired or replaced, and the vehicle is rebuilt to as-new performance so that its service life restarts. An upgrade, by contrast, adds capability the tank did not have: new sights, thermal imagers, explosive reactive armour, a different gun or ammunition. Overhaul capacity is therefore a readiness question rather than a capability question - a fleet whose tanks queue for overhaul has fewer tanks fit to fight, whatever its paper strength. That is the arithmetic in this release: a requirement of 230 tanks a year against 150 of capacity at Avadi meant a standing shortfall, and 80 more at Jabalpur closes most of it while also creating a second, geographically separate line, which matters for resilience if one site is disrupted.
Simple Analogy: An overhaul is a full engine rebuild that makes an old car run like new. An upgrade is fitting it with a new gearbox and a reversing camera it never had.
The OFB's conversion into seven DPSUs is the standard case study for corporatisation of a departmental undertaking - useful for questions on PSU governance, Miniratna and Navratna autonomy, and disinvestment policy alike.
Overhaul capacity is a maintenance-and-sustainment question, the part of the defence budget that determines how much of the force is actually serviceable at any moment.
Positive indigenisation lists, indigenous engine production at Engine Factory Avadi and the Arjun programme are three different instruments aimed at the same dependence on foreign supply chains.
Defence overhaul work is component-intensive and recurring, which is why it is used as an anchor for regional MSME clusters - the same logic behind the defence industrial corridors.
GS Paper 3 > Security > Defence Indigenisation; GS Paper 3 > Economy > Public Sector Enterprises
General Awareness > Defence and Static GK
CDS/AFCAT General Knowledge > Indian Defence Production
General Awareness > Current Affairs
Defence indigenisation, the OFB corporatisation and Indian tank programmes appear regularly in UPSC Prelims, CDS and SSC General Awareness.
Stripping a tank to its major assemblies and rebuilding it to as-new performance so its service life restarts - distinct from an upgrade, which adds new capability.
A Department of Public Enterprises status for a CPSE that has made profit in each of the last three years, with pre-tax profit of Rs 30 crore or more in at least one of them and a positive net worth.
A notified list of defence items whose import is barred after stated timelines, issued separately by the Department of Military Affairs for the services and by the Department of Defence Production for the DPSUs.
The Indian designation of the Russian T-90S main battle tank, licence-produced at Heavy Vehicles Factory Avadi since 2004.
The ground-breaking ceremony marking the formal start of construction at a project site.