Tata Motors is about to bag additional order for high mobility military trucks for the Army 31901162.

The high mobility vehicles - needed for a variety of roles from transporting men and material to being the platform for multi barrel rocket launchers and surface to air missile systems - are in high demand by the Army that has struggled to procure trucks after the Tatra scandal hit headlines in 2012.

Authoritative sources have told ET (Economic Times) that the Army has formally moved a follow on border to a contract it signed with Tata motors in March last year. The follow on order is to procure 619 new 6X6 High Mobility vehicles that will cost the Army just over $51.7 million (Rs 350 crore). This would add to the earlier order for 1,239 vehicles that was valued at $139 million (Rs 940 crore).

Tata Motors had won the order earlier in a competition that included the Tatra-BEML combine. "We are confident that the vehicles have more than met the requirements of the Indian Army. We are also in the process of increasing the indigenous content on the trucks, including the loading crane that will soon be made fully in India," Vernon Noronha, Vice President, Defence and Government Business, Tata Motors told ET.

Designed for extreme missions including carrying heavy loads of road, the Tata 6x6 has been extensively tested at the VRDE (Vehicle Research & Development Establishment) 'torture track' designed to test military vehicles and will be operated in all terrain - from the deserts of Rajasthan to extreme heights and cold in Ladakh and along the Chinese border.