How India plans to rebuild T-72, T-90 tanks using Soviet-era blueprints

BHOPAL: The documents are decades old, written in Russian and never meant to be read by anyone outside the original programme. At Vehicle Factory Jabalpur (VFJ), engineers are reading them anyway.Working with Heavy Vehicles Factory, based in Tamil Nadu's Avadi, VFJ has decoded nearly 70% of Soviet-era drawings for specialised fixtures used to dismantle and rebuild battle tanks. The factory is developing designs indigenously for fixtures whose drawings are unavailable, aiming to overhaul 80 Army tanks annually from April 2028.India's armoured fleet includes the Soviet-origin T-72 Ajeya and Russian-designed T-90 Bhishma. In 2001, a contract was signed for licensed production of 1,000 T-90 tanks at Avadi, following an earlier agreement to procure 310 tanks that included technology transfer. Russian experts had helped establish production processes, while Indian engineers travelled to Russia for training.Jabalpur is being developed as a second tank overhaul centre alongside Avadi.