New Delhi: In a boost to the TATA-Airbus collaboration, the defence ministry Friday cleared the procurement of 15 additional Medium Range Maritime Reconnaissance and Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft, nine of which will go to the Indian Navy and six to the Indian Coast Guard (ICG).
While the ministry did not name the aircraft, sources in the defence and security establishment said it is the C-295 aircraft which is being built in India under a collaboration between European major Airbus and TATA.
The ministry in a statement said the procurement, part of the deals worth Rs 84,560 crore that has been cleared, will be through the Buy and Make category and the project has been greenlighted for strengthening the surveillance and interdiction capabilities of the Navy and the ICG over the country’s vast maritime area.
ThePrint has reported from the very beginning that while the initial contract for the C-295 aircraft was only for 56, the numbers will go up. The IAF will also be revising its numbers and could order more of the same.
This is the first instance in India where an aircraft is being manufactured by the private sector.
However, while this deal was expected, the significant decision was taken during the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh-led Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) giving Acceptance of Necessity (AON), the first formal step, for procurement of “Flight Refueller Aircraft”. This, the ministry said was for enhancing the operational capabilities and reach of the Indian Air Force.
This is a project that the IAF has been eagerly waiting for and has failed twice in the past to finish off the procurement despite this being seen as a critical project.
India currently uses six Russian IIyushin-78 tankers, first inducted in 2003, but these are facing maintenance and serviceability issues.
Though the tanker programme has been cleared under the ‘Buy Global’ category — which means that the product will be bought from foreign vendors — sources said there is a clause allowing procurement of pre-owned aircraft. This means that the deal could be a hybrid one.
While the contenders for refuellers are Airbus with its A330 multi-role tanker transport (MRTT) and Boeing with its KC-46 Pegasus, there could be a twist.
While new mid-air refuellers will turn out to be costly, an option is to convert a pre-owned passenger aircraft into a tanker. This will bring down the cost.
This is because the KC-46 is a variant of the Boeing 767 passenger aircraft, which is also used by the Italian and Japanese militaries. The Airbus MRTT is a variant of its A-330 civil passenger aircraft.
Sources said that since the deal allows the procurement of pre-owned aircraft, no company would bid with a new aircraft since the other will turn out to be the lowest bidder since it will be cheaper.
Last year the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) had entered into an MoU with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to convert civil (passenger) aircraft into multi-mission tanker transport (MMTT) aircraft in India. This was for Boeing 767.
Past attempts by the IAF failed miserably
Since 2006, IAF has tried twice to procure refuellers but failed to procure them because of multiple reasons.
Airbus has won the bid both times.
To beat the system, the IAF then proposed leasing the refuellers and, again, Airbus was the frontrunner but inability to fix the number of aircraft to be leased and the cost involved meant that even this plan did not go through.
However, it is learnt that at least one aircraft could still be leased.
In what was considered a coup, Airbus in 2008 had managed to win the US Air Force’s KC-X tanker procurement programme with a proposed US-built A330 MRTT.
This would have been the biggest ever deal bagged by Airbus but the contract was finally awarded to American firm Boeing after a lot of domestic hue and cry.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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