Updated: December 18, 2020 8:33:51 am
Union Defense Minister Rajnath Singh.
The DEFENSE Procurement Council headed by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday approved seven proposals worth 28 billion rupees, two of which are aimed at boosting the forces’ surveillance capabilities. While one of them is for six new indigenously built “eyes in the sky” platforms for the Air Force, the other is related to the Navy’s unmanned aerial systems.
Apart from these, the DAC gave its go-ahead to the Navy to acquire 38 BrahMos missiles and five more next-generation offshore patrol vehicles. He also cleared modular bridges for the army.
In a statement, the government said this was the first meeting of the DAC since the “new 2020 Defense Acquisition Procedure regime” came into force in September, and “these are the first set of Acceptance of Need (AoN) agreed upon. , with the majority of AoN being awarded in the highest Buy Indian category ”.
The government said that six of the seven proposals “ie 27,000 rupees of the 28,000 rupees for which AoNs were awarded will be sourced from Indian industry to give a boost” to the Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat initiatives.
Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW & C), also called “eyes in the sky,” will boost the Air Force’s surveillance capabilities, especially along the borders with Pakistan and China. The previous such platform, Netra, which was developed by the DRDO, was used by the Air Force during the 2019 Balakot airstrike to track any incoming Pakistani fighter jets.
Under the new project, to build the six new AEW & C platforms, DRDO will use Air India aircraft to assemble Active Electronically Scanned Array radar systems that can provide 360-degree surveillance capabilities. The project is estimated to cost more than Rs 10 billion.
The other major surveillance project that got DAC approval was unmanned aerial vehicles for the Navy that can operate from the deck of ships.
China and Pakistan are already using such platforms. While Pakistan has Boeing’s Scaneagle, China is using Austrian-made S-100s.
.
