The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar which met on Saturday cleared a follow on order for 38 Pilatus basic trainer aircraft for the Air Force in addition to appointing the Goa Shipyard Limited as the lead agency to build 12 Mine Counter-Measure Vessels (MCMV) for the Navy.
The Air Force has projected a requirement of 181 basic trainer aircraft. 75 Pilatus aircraft were procured from Switzerland in 2012 and 38 cleared on Saturday. The remaining 68 will be supplied by the Hindustan Aeronautic Limited (HAL) by the indigenous development of HTT-40 aircraft.
“However, adequate orders will be given to HAL to make this a commercially viable project,” Defence Ministry sources said indicating that the number could go up.
Officials added that the progress of the project would be monitored by a committee that would periodically report to the DAC.
The earlier global tender for eight MCMVs was scrapped after allegations of corruption. The process would start from scratch now. There would be a “Buy and Make” category under the procurement procedure and the GSL would build the ships under transfer of technology with a foreign vendor in a deal worth about Rs. 32,000 crore. The GSL had already invested Rs. 500 crore to develop the required facilities, the officials informed.
One C-130 would be acquired at the cost of Rs. 533 crore from the U.S. to replace the one that crashed in 2014. The crash killed five personnel, including four officers.
Other deals cleared include 21 low level light weight radars for the Air Force and a repeat order of rockets for the Army.
