IN Brief:
- India has awarded Accurate Industrial Controls a ₹586 crore contract for T-72 and T-90 auxiliary power units.
- The APUs will provide electrical power for fire-control, firing, gun-stabilisation, and ancillary equipment.
- The order moves an indigenous Make-II development into production for two established Indian Army tank fleets.
India’s Ministry of Defence has awarded Accurate Industrial Controls Private Limited a ₹586 crore contract to supply indigenous auxiliary power units for the Indian Army’s T-72 and T-90 tank fleets.
The agreement was signed in New Delhi on 21 September and moves a subsystem developed through India’s Make-II procurement route into production. The Ministry of Defence has not disclosed the number of APUs ordered, the delivery timetable, or their electrical output, leaving the contract value as the principal measure of the programme’s current scale.
Each APU is intended to provide an alternate source of electrical power for the tank’s fire-control system, firing circuit, gun-stabilisation system, and other ancillary equipment. Those loads sit directly behind several of the functions required to observe, aim, and operate the vehicle’s weapon system, making power availability a fundamental part of armoured-platform reliability.
An auxiliary unit allows electrical systems to be supported without relying solely on the tank’s main engine. The ministry has not published fuel-consumption, acoustic-signature, endurance, or output figures for the new equipment, so the procurement does not yet support comparisons with existing units on those measures.
Production is the more concrete milestone. India’s Make-II mechanism is designed around industry-funded development of equipment identified for eventual military procurement, with the customer becoming involved as the design progresses towards trials and acquisition. The APU award moves Accurate beyond development into a contracted manufacturing role.
Accurate already operates across defence power systems, electronics, industrial controls, and vehicle-related engineering. Its published capabilities include compact generating sets and power systems for defence applications, along with design, validation, and manufacturing work for motors, drives, battery packs, and other electrical equipment.
The company also lists tank re-engineering among its defence activities, giving the APU programme a link to existing work around heavy military vehicles rather than creating an entirely new industrial discipline. Translating that experience into repeatable series supply will still require production control, documentation, inspection, and configuration management specific to the T-72 and T-90 installation.
Electrical subsystems on an armoured vehicle operate within demanding mechanical and environmental constraints. Packaging space is limited, vibration and shock levels are high, access for maintenance can be difficult, and equipment has to function across wide temperature ranges while avoiding interference with nearby electronics. Power equipment also has to integrate with the vehicle’s existing distribution architecture without introducing new reliability problems elsewhere in the platform.
Those requirements make subsystem localisation more complex than replacing an imported component with a dimensionally similar domestic product. Qualification has to demonstrate that the new unit can survive the vehicle environment and supply the required loads throughout its operating envelope, while maintenance organisations need spares, test procedures, repair documentation, and trained personnel once the system enters service.
The size of the installed T-72 and T-90 fleets gives that support structure particular weight. Both designs have been in Indian service for extended periods and have accumulated modifications across communications, sights, protection, fire control, and other equipment. Introducing another common subsystem creates an opportunity to consolidate support, but only if configuration differences between vehicle batches are controlled during installation.
Domestic production also moves a portion of through-life responsibility into the Indian industrial base. A local supplier can support future component changes, obsolescence management, repair work, and additional production without returning every modification to an overseas source, although the contractual arrangements for long-term support have not been disclosed.
The procurement fits a wider Indian policy of moving localisation efforts below complete vehicles and weapon systems into the components that determine availability. Power generation, electronic modules, actuators, sensors, and other subsystems rarely attract the attention attached to a new tank or missile programme, but shortages or failures in those areas can remove an otherwise serviceable platform from use.
Accurate’s award also demonstrates the commercial consequence of an industry-led development route once a project clears the acquisition threshold. Prototype development can establish technical feasibility; production demands repeatable manufacturing processes, controlled suppliers, quality records, and the capacity to deliver several units to the same standard over time.
The Ministry of Defence has not yet stated whether the T-72 and T-90 installations will proceed concurrently or in separate phases, nor has it identified the first formation expected to receive the new units. Those details will provide a clearer indication of the production tempo once deliveries begin.
For now, the ₹586 crore contract establishes a defined manufacturing programme around a domestically developed electrical subsystem and places Accurate Industrial Controls inside the support chain for two of the Indian Army’s principal armoured platforms. Production quantities, delivery milestones, and fleet installation schedules will determine how quickly that development becomes a fielded capability.
