India will float fresh global tenders to acquire 155 mm howitzers with Defence Minister A K Antony on Tuesday saying that artillery guns fielded by Bofors and Israel's Soltam in earlier trials had not met the army's parameters.

"The army is not satisfied with the trials, which ran for four years," Antony told media persons on the sidelines of a function to felicitate an army team that climbed Mount Everest.

"We will issue the tenders at the earliest and ensure that these guns are inducted into the army in the shortest possible time," he said.

The army conducted four rounds of trials in summer and winter for the guns between 2002 and 2006. Besides Bofors and Soltam, South Africa's Denel participated in the two trials.

The Denel gun was not allowed to take part in the third round of trials after the firm was blacklisted following allegations that it had paid kickbacks to bag another deal with India.

Army chief Gen J J Singh, who was also present at the function, said the guns from Bofors and Soltam had not met qualitative requirements.

The army wants to purchase 400 155 mm howitzers of 52 calibre. The deal has been estimated to be worth Rs 4,000 crore. Under the proposal, 1,000 more towed guns are to be made in India after a transfer of technology.

"The Bofors guns has not proved to be to the satisfaction of the armed forces," Antony said.

He made it clear that the government was acting on the army's opinion in this matter.

According to army sources, the Bofors guns had outperformed its rivals in all four rounds of trials. If the guns had been cleared for acquisition, India would have been one of the first countries in the world to have inducted 52-calibre 155 mm towed guns.

The government has already floated fresh tenders for tracked and wheeled versions of the 155mm guns after rejecting a proposal to manufacture a weapon system that would combine guns from Denel with a T-72 tank chassis.

The proposal was rejected after a parliamentary committee took exception to the former National Democratic Alliance government opting for Denel's guns without undertaking any trials.

Top military sources said the fresh tenders will be a jolt to the modernisation of the artillery as they would put the programme for inducting the much-needed guns back by six to eight years.

The 52-calibre 155 mm towed guns are capable of firing nuclear-tipped shells to a distance of up to 50 km.

While the modernisation of the infantry and armoured formation has been on in full swing since 2001, the artillery, a vital arm, has seen no quantum improvement in its firepower.

Though India has concluded a deal to acquire long-range Smerch multi-barrel rocket systems, the deal has run into problems due to squabbles over pricing with the Russian manufacturers.

India plans to buy 100 tracked 155 mm guns and 180 wheeled guns as part of moves to build a strike corps capable of rapid deployment.

The time for bidders to respond was extended twice due to the lack of response from them.

In a bid to overcome to overcome critical shortages in the artillery, the army has begun upgrading its older Russian-designed 130 mm guns with expertise from Soltam. In a move that has been criticised by experts, the army decided to upgrade the Russian guns instead of the more modern 1989 version of the 155 mm 39-calibre Bofors guns bought from Sweden.

Though the army initially decided to upgrade only 100 Russian guns the programme has now been expanded to almost 500 guns at an estimated cost of over Rs 800 crore.

The upgraded guns, artillery officers complained, cannot achieve a firing angle of over 45 degrees, making them unfit for operations in the mountains.

With the floating of fresh tenders, the army would lose the benefit of procuring towed guns at the price levels of 2002-2003, which were in the range of Rs 10-12 crore per gun, as against the current price of approximately Rs 25-30 crore per gun.