The Army’s attempts to procure bulletproof jackets for its infantry soldiers have moved closer to conclusion. A tender for 1.86 lakh jackets has moved to the negotiation stage and is expected to be finalised in the next couple of months.
“The tender to procure 1.86 lakh BPJs is being processed under the capital procurement route. It has completed the general staff (GS) evaluation trials and moved on to contract negotiation committee,” a defence official said.
Three Indian companies are in the fray and all three have now cleared the GS evaluation. In the next stage, price benchmarking would be undertaken and the supplier would be selected followed by cost negotiations with the shortlisted vendor, the official said.
The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) had given approval for the procurement in 2009. In 2015 the Army cancelled the Request for Proposal (RFP) due to rejection of all samples in the trials.
