The year ends with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) handing over highly mobile bridges to the Indian Army. The bridges which have been developed by the Research and Development Establishment (Engineers) under DRDO and is part of Armament and Combat Engineering technology cluster, which is the Pune-headquartered

These will help in fulfilling the requirement of mobility to the Indian armed forces and will bridge the gaps during operations.

These bridges have been developed based on the requirement of the armed forces and are being done in coordination with the Corps of Engineers, Indian Army.

0lso, the DRDO has developed different variants of the bridges — five-meter and 15 meters. And these have been inducted in the Indian Army.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) "It is a step towards weaning away of our armed forces from foreign manufactured equipment. These have been designed and developed indigenously and are being delivered as per the schedule."

This belongs to the Military Load Classification — 70 load class. It is capable of bridging smaller caps and canals up to 10 meters in length.

It has a high mobility launching platform which is suitable for heavy military traffic.

There is a double-A shaped trestle that provides heavy military vehicles stability.

These can be used for quick construction which requires minimum crew and lighting arrangement for deployment at night.

DRDO has also successfully conducted the maiden Flight Trial of SAHAYAK-NG, Air Droppable Container

Along with the Indian Navy, DRDO on Thursday has successfully conducted the test trial of 'SAHAYAK-NG'.

It is India first indigenously designed and developed Air Dropped Container. It was dropped from IL 38SD aircraft (Indian Navy) off the coast of Goa.

To further enhance Indian Navy's operational logistics capabilities and to also provide critical engineering stores to ships.

For collecting spares and stores, the ships which are deployed more than 2000 km from the coast, may not have to come close to the coast any more.

There are two labs — NSTL, Visakhapatnam and ADRDE, Agra.

These two labs developed SAHAYAK-NG container along with the industry partner M/s Avantel for GPS integration and can carry a payload up to 50 kg and can be dropped from a heavy aircraft.

(With inputs from agencies)