Hyderabad: The Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), a unit of Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO), along with Dvipa Armour India Private Limited, a Hyderabad-based private firm introduced a new rifle ‘Ugram’ which means ‘ferocious’ on Monday, January 8.
The weapon was remarkably developed in less than 100 days after two years of design and planning.
Officials said that it’s the first time DRDO worked with a private firm to manufacture a 7.62 x 51mm rifle. It approximately covers 500 metres range and weighs about 4 kg. It has a round of 20 bullets and shoots in both automatic and single mode. The hardware has been developed under the army consideration of General Staff Qualitative Requirements (GSQR).
The Ugram has been developed keeping the requirements of Indian Army, parliamentary, military and state police forces in mind. But, the main scope and motive behind making of the ferocious rifle was the police and Indian Army to have access to a good machine as the import of famous and one of the fastest rifles, AK 47, from Russia has been limited due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Shailendra Gade, the director general of the Armament and Combat Engineering (ACE) system of DRDO unveiled the rifle.
The rifle will soon undergo time consuming trials like capability of working in harsh weathers like extreme winter, heat, underwater, for the requirements in terms of good functioning, accuracy, etc.
It initially took 2 years to design and plan the rifle. And once they were done with it, they started looking for private firms to make the idea of rifles come true.
