A New Field Firing Test Range To Be Set Up in Gujarat
The Indian Army has been looking for an exclusive firing range for technical testing of artillery guns, rockets, tanks and anti tank missiles. Indian Army has 05 National ranges and 12 Army ranges apart from around 88 notified ranges. The five National ranges are at Pokhran, Mahajan, Babina, Devlali and Ahmednagar.
These ranges along with the 12 Army ranges are busy 24×7 through out the year with field firing activities. Allotment of slots at these ranges are done, nearly a year in advance by Director General Military Training.
It becomes very difficult to allot additional slots for unplanned or unscheduled technical trials etc for newly inducted / manufactured weapons to DRDO, Ordinance PSUs, Private manufactures or even to requests made by other directorates of Army HQ or Air HQ.
“ we have received inquiries from defence manufacturing players such as Baba Kalyani Group for the same. Based on their requirement for a firing range with 25 kilometres length and five kilometres width, we have identified a land area in Dholera SIR,” Shivahare said here on the sidelines of the second Gujarat Aviation Conclave 2019 organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Thursday.
Jai Prakash Shivahare, Managing Director of Dholera Industrial City Development Ltd (DICDL) stated that the said firing range will be built at Dholera Special Investment Region (SIR) on a land area of about 200 square kilometres (sq km). The range will primarily be used by Indian Army and Indian Air Force, but will also be open for private players for testing their defence products.
The Gujarat government is working on the Indian Army’s request, to set up a large 200-square kilometres of multi-weapon firing range, at Dholera Smart City – about 100 kilometres from Ahmadabad.
He said that once the firing range is operational, it would help attract other defence manufacturing investments in the Dholera region. The project has received an in-principle approval from the concerned authorities including the state government.
The identified land for the firing range includes government-owned land as well as some private land too. “We will compensate the private owners for the acquisition of the land. The firing range will be close to the coastline in the Gulf of Cambay,” he commented.
Initially, the Government was considering two sites – Kutch and Dholera – for the firing range. But eventually, the authorities had selected Dholera.
