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F-INSAS is one of the most ambitious plans of the Indian Army for the next decade. The motivation is to create an Infantry soldier who is highly survivable, mobile, lethal and sustainable with outmatch capabilities vis-à-vis adversaries, 24x7 and in any type of terrain or weather. The soldier will be a self-contained unit with high degree of situational awareness and decision-making capacity in real time. While shortfalls and lapses in the programme cannot be ruled out, the prevailing security milieu demands that the Indian soldier has the requisite tools to fight the battles of modern warfare.
An ambitious project envisaged post the Kargil War of 1999, was 'modernisation' of the Indian infantry soldier. The 'futuristic infantry soldier as a system', more widely known by the acronym F-INSAS, is a huge step in this direction and came into effect in the year 2007. The project envisages achieving specific milestones in time-bound manner such as the implementation of the programme for eight to ten infantry battalions (up to 10,000 infantrymen) by 2015, and fully upgrading rest of the Indian Army's infantry by 2020.
The main aim of the F-INSAS p ro gr am me i s t o equi p the I nd ia n soldier with state-of-the-art equipment including multi-calibre and multi-mode weapons; information, navigation and communication equipment; protective gear; health and environment monitoring t o o l s a n d p o r t ab l e r e n e w ab l e p o we r sources.
The fully integrated soldier-system will function in a multi-role, multi-weather and fully aware battle-space, enhancing his capabilities of lethality, survivability, sustainability and mobility. The Indian Army is steadily implementing a major plan to make its units "light, rapidly deployable and more...