New Delhi, March 31: Want to buy a tank? Just log in. The army is selling tanks on the Net.

It has put up for sale by auction its old warhorse, the Vijayant Main Battle Tank. A total of 800 Vijayant tanks will be sold as scrap through a bidding process on the Internet, the director general of the Army Ordnance Corps, Lieutenant General T.A. D?Cunha, said here today.

Disposal of the vintage Vijayant tanks is part of a drive to reduce the army?s obsolete war wastes and cut down the inventory of arms, ammunition and material of which the Army Ordnance Corps is the custodian.

The corps hold about 4.5 lakh items for the army ? arms, ammunition, uniforms ? valued at more than Rs 50,000 crore. The army is hoping to cut the inventory by 20 per cent in 2005-2006, D?Cunha said.

The Vijayant, a derivative of the British Mark 1 Vickers of World War II vintage, was at the core of the Indian Army?s armoured formations in the 1971 India-Pakistan war.

The first Vijayant was inducted in 1969. The Army Ordnance Corps has now contracted the Metal Scrap Trading Corporation to sell the Vijayant.

But selling a tank is not an easy task. The tanks will be ?mutilated? and buyers will be asked to cut the iron monsters into half by electronic arcs outside the ordnance corps? depots. Each tank, depending on its accessories, weighs between 30 and 40 tonnes.

The ordnance corps were emboldened to sell tanks on the Net after disposing of 80 armoured personnel carriers recently.