Heavy Industries Taxila

Heavy Industries Taxila is the armoured vehicle arm of Pakistan's Ministry of Defence Production, built up at Taxila Cantt in Rawalpindi District since 1971 and now a complex of manufacturing plants, rebuild factories and support facilities employing several thousand engineers and technicians. Its motto, strength through self reliance, is a fair description of the business model: license and partnership arrangements with China and elsewhere are used to build up local content until a design can be produced and supported domestically. It reports to the same ministry as Pakistan Ordnance Factories and Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, and describes itself as the backbone of the country's engineering industry for the armed forces.

The defence products line starts with tanks. Haider is the newest, a third generation plus main battle tank produced with Norinco and Pakistani suppliers, rolled out at Taxila in 2024 after a first showing at IDEX 2023, with a 1200 horsepower powerpack, thermal imager based auto-tracking and modular digital architecture. Al-Khalid and the improved Al-Khalid I preceded it, and Al-Zarrar is the deep upgrade of older T-59 hulls with a 730 horsepower engine, a 125mm smoothbore gun and a modern fire control system. The APC Manufacturing Factory turns out the M113 derived family: APC Talha, the Sakb command vehicle, the stretched Al Qaswa logistic carrier rated at six tonnes of cargo, and the Al Hadeed armoured recovery vehicle with its three tonne crane and onboard workshop. The Gun Factory produces barrels from 105mm to 203mm calibre, including the 125mm smoothbore guns for Al-Khalid and Al-Zarrar and a 155mm self propelled gun. The Tank Manufacturing Factory opened in January 1992 and has since built the T-69IIMP, T-85IIAP, Al-Khalid and the W-653 armoured recovery vehicle.

Rebuild factories handle the other half of the workload, returning M109A2 self propelled guns and M113 series carriers to original specification and overhauling T-series and M-series vehicles. Commercial products take the same tooling into other markets: armoured security vehicles in the Mohafiz II, III and IV series, the Protector, discreetly armoured Land Rover Defender 110 and Toyota Land Cruiser cars, armoured guard posts, bullet proof rostrums and screens, and body armour. Joint venture products add the Dragoon 2 wheeled security vehicle, PASGT ballistic helmets, portable shelters and LED lighting made with a Pakistani partner. Commercial lab services sell the metallurgical, testing and inspection capability to outside customers, and a newer industrial push covers railway axle shafts, oil and gas and hydraulic piping, electric buses and central pivot irrigation systems, with the first indigenous irrigation unit installed at Bahawalpur. Margalla HIL is the group's separately branded product line. Support facilities, an advanced research and development centre and a components and engineering support unit sit behind the production lines and make the parts the factories cannot buy locally.