New Delhi: A key project to enable faster connectivity between commanders in times of war and enhance their awareness is being closed down by the Indian Army. The defence ministry is expected to take a decision on this in a high-level meeting.

The project known as the Battlefield Management System (BFMS) has been in the making for a long time but it is being planned to close now.
 
“A proposal for the foreclosure of the over Rs 10,000 crore project is going to be placed before a high-level meeting of the defence ministry where a final decision is expected to be taken,” senior government sources told MyNation.

The Indian Army has taken this decision so that it can focus on larger projects such as the acquisition of rifles and bigger weapon systems.
 
A number of similar proposals for the foreclosure of projects are in the pipeline in the Ministry of Defence, including some of the Navy where warship-building projects have been stuck due to bad shape of the concerned shipyards.
 
The BFMS was envisaged to network frontline combat troops in infantry battalions and tank regiments. 
 
It would have worked like maps, which gets drivers to their destinations quicker by “crowd-sourcing” traffic information from various sources, including drivers’ mobile phones.
 
BFMS would have crowd-sourced battlefield information from its own soldiers, communicated over small software defined radios that would have provided to each soldier.