History
Plans to establish a heavy vehicles facility were envisaged as early as July 1968, when President Ayub Khan negotiated a credit offered by Czechoslovakia for establishing a workshop at Multan for the overhaul of T-59 MBTs which the Pakistan Armoured Corps was acquiring in large numbers from China at the time. However, the project was scuttled after the Soviet Union refused to grant clearance to the Czech side for the construction of the facility. Some years later, during Yahya Khan's regime, the Defence Secretary, Syed Ghiasuddin Ahmed, on instructions of the President, channelled a formal request to the Chinese government through the Chinese ambassador to establish a "tank manufacturing plant" for Pakistan, in response to which the Chinese dispatched a team from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for discussions.[6]
As a first step, experts from China and Pakistan surveyed sites around Multan and Rawalpindi in May 1971, with the latter's Taxila area eventually being selected as the ideal location for the facility. Therefore, a MoU was signed in July 1971 between the government of Pakistan and the government of China for a "tank re-build complex".[6]
In the aftermath of the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war, the Ministry of Defence realized the importance and critical need of indigenization and developing a local defence industry. As a result, Project-711 was initiated, which was overseen from Chaklala under the jurisdiction of the Defence Production Division of the Ministry of Defence (today's Ministry of Defence Production). Under Project-711, construction of a Heavy Rebuild Factory for T-59s commenced at the previously selected site at Taxila with assistance from China's Norinco. It started with the construction of residential buildings for the factory's employees in early 1973, followed by the construction of the rebuild complex in 1975. Construction of the complex was completed by the late 1970s. The Heavy Rebuild Factory (T-series) was formally inaugurated in 1979 by President Zia-ul-Haq, with the first locally overhauled T-59 rolled out of the factory's production line. A year later, in 1980, the factory initiated serial production with a yearly capacity to rebuild 100 T-59s and 250 engines.[6]
By 1992, new factories had been constructed as HRF transformed into a large multi-factory military industrial complex spanning over 1400 acres, supplemented by 2 more R&D labs in 2007. Altogether, the complex had a combined workforce of 5200 engineers and technicians. Subsequently, the facility was renamed to "Heavy Industries Taxila".[7]
By the 2020s, HIT had manufactured 1800 armored fighting vehicles and 400+ internal security vehicles besides overhauling 5000 armored vehicles.[7]
