"This is a follow up order," an Israeli official said Indian Army Chief Gen. J J Singh had recently said that as part of infantry modernization, Army planned to equip all its battalions with night vision equipment.
Though almost all the front line units and those engaged in counter-insurgency have been equipped with night vision devices, Army estimates are that equipment worth over $500m. was still needed to arm the remaining units. The Israel Defense Ministry had recently announced that India is its largest single importer of defense equipment with orders running as high as $1.5 billion last year. This amounts to about 50% of Israeli defense exports and about 30 per cent of India armament imports.
Israeli firms have already supplied India with front line weapons systems like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for the Army, Navy and Air force, night vision devices for army, Tavor range of hand weapons for special forces, close battlefield radars like Loros.
The Israeli firm, Starnight Technologies has won a $25m. order to provide night vision devices to the Indian Army.
The company will provide the equipment over a two-year period ending August 2009. The order suffices to equip two infantry mountain divisions.
This is the second major order for night vision devices secured by the Israeli firm. In November, it secured an order valued at $38m.