New Delhi, Oct 25 (IANS): The defence ministry Saturday cleared a big ticket defence deal worth Rs.80,000 crore, which includes Israel's guided anti-tank missile Spike, sources said.
Spike missiles were chosen instead of the US' Javelin missiles, for which Washington had lobbied hard.
India will be buying over 8,000 missiles worth Rs.32,000 crore.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) Saturday which was headed by Defence Minister Arun Jaitley.
According to highly placed sources, the minister said "national security is of paramount concern for the government" and "all hurdles and bottlenecks in procurement process should be addressed expeditiously so that the pace of acquisition is not stymied".
Spike is an Israeli man-portable, 'fire-and-forget' anti-tank guided missile and anti-personnel missile with a tandem-charged heat warhead.