Sarvatra

Sarvatra (means Everywhere) is an universal truck-mounted bridging system. It have been developed by Research and Development Establishment, Pune of Drdo along with Larsen & Toubro and is manufactured by Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML) at their Mysore complex

Development

The Sarvatra project was sanctioned in 1994 and completed development in October 1999 at a total cost of Rs 230 million and was approved for production in March 2000 after 200 tank crossing trials.

Description

The Sarvatra features state of the art trestle-cum-span bridge and microprocessor based control system which reduces the number of personnel required to deploy and operationalize the bridge. It is transported on locally manufactured Tatra Kolos (8 x 8) cross country truck, fitted with a scissors bridge that is launched over the rear of the chassis. The scissors bridge is 15 m long when opened out is fitted with adjustable trestles to enable a number of units to be used to bridge wet and dry gaps, up to five sections can be laid to provide a total bridge length of 75m providing a roadway of four meters. The bridge could be launched/recovered from either end in 15 to 20 minutes. With the help of telescopic legs, the height of the bridge can be adjusted from 2.5 m to 6 m so that it is not easily visible to the enemy. The spans are made of a light but strong alloy of aluminium, magnesium and zinc.

DRDO is also developing a newer version of the Sarvatra with 20 meter long spans and its multi-span bridge can cover upto 100 meter. The is concept is very similar to the Russian TMM and Slovakian AM-50/AM-50B bridging systems carried and transported by a 6 x 6 truck chassis.

Production

Each Sarvatra set costs Rs 22 crores (2010). An order for Limited Serial Production (LSP) of 8 vehicle is sheduled to be released in first half of year 2010 by Indian Army against total requirement of 50 Sarvatra sets

Salient Features

• Load Class: MLC-70
• Single Span Length: 15/20 m
• Multi-Span Capability: 75/100 m
• Roadway Width: 3.45 m during transportation; 4 m during use
• Span Height: 2.6 m to 6 m
• Construction time: 15 minutes
• Crew: 1 driver + 3

See also

• Kartik BLT
• BLT T-72
• Arjun BLT
• AFFS
• Sakav