Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd.

Tata Motors, country’s largest automobile company has offered its latest vehicles to the Defence Ministry to replace the controversial Tatra trucks, used so far to carry missiles such as Agni and Prithvi. The procurement of Tatra trucks has been put on hold pending a CBI probe into bribery allegations by former Army chief Gen V K Singh.

The automaker will make a presentation before Defence Ministry’s Director General (Acquisition) S B Agnihotri about its latest vehicles offered by it to replace Tatra trucks for carrying missile systems of the armed forces such as BrahMos and Pinaka. The Ministry has already been offered trucks by Russian and Belarusian firms for replacing the Tatras including the Volat trucks from Belarus which are used to carry strategic missile systems of the Russian armed forces.

At present, more than 7,000 Tatra trucks are in service with the armed forces and after the controversy in March last year, their repair and maintenance have also become an issue in the defence forces.