The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, met here on Wednesday and approved deals estimated at about Rs. 4,400 crore but deferred a decision on an Avro aircraft replacement for the Indian Air Force.
The biggest allocation of Rs. 2,324 crore was for issuing a fresh Request for Proposal (RFP) for bigger survey vessels for the Navy. This was necessitated because of the failure in procuring a naval utility helicopter small enough to fit on the earlier ships. The Advanced Light Helicopter is larger and the ships have to be redesigned. The RFP will be issued to both public and private sector shipyards.Two deals for the Army have been approved.
First is a Rs. 402 crore for life extension of the airbags on the Army’s P-7 platforms which are used to cushion paradrop of heavy battle loads onto the battlefield. This will extend life from 8 to 15 years and will be executed by the Aerial Delivery Research & Development Establishment (ADRDE) lab in Agra.
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The second is the upgrade of Army’s ‘Samyukta’ electronic warfare system by Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL) for Rs. 1,682 crore.
The DAC allocated Rs. 36 crore for engines of Coast Guard vessels.
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The 23,000-crore Avro programme was deferred as “certain activities” need to be completed, Ministry sources said. The Air Force intends to replace its 56 ageing Avro aircraft and has invited bids.
Only one bid from Tata-Airbus has been received so far which has resulted in a single vendor situation and as per the Defence Procurement Procedure the process had to be cancelled. The DAC has now twice deferred the decision on the issue.