The central government today cleared a Euro 950m deal(Rs.6,600 crore approximately) to procure 490 air-to-air missiles from a French firm for IAF’s front line Mirage 2000 aircraft fleet.
The central government today cleared a Euro 950m deal(Rs.6,600 crore approximately) to procure 490 air-to-air missiles from a French firm for IAF’s front line Mirage 2000 aircraft fleet.
On Wednesday, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting chaired by prime minister Manmohan Singh finally gave its go-ahead for the much awaited project to procure 490 MICA (interception and aerial combat missiles) missiles manufactured by French firm i.e. MBDA for Euro 950m, defence ministry sources said.
The fighters would be armed with new MICA missiles with a range of taking on targets almost 40 kms away, almost double the range of present missiles on Indian fighters. The missiles would be deployed on the 51 Mirage 2000 aircraft, which are already undergoing upgrades at French facilities under a Euro 1.47bn deal signed earlier this year.
According to defence officials, under the deal, MBDA will have to do offsets worth 30 per cent of the deal meaning that they will have to invest Euro 315m back in the Indian defence sector. It is the mandate of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) that foreign vendors bagging deals worth over Rs 300cr have to invest back at least 30 per cent of the contract’s worth into Indian defence, civil aerospace and homeland security sector.
Sources in the defence ministry maintained that two aircraft have already been flown from their home-base in Gwalior last month to France for upgrades and the remaining 49 would be modernised in India at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) facilities here in India.
“The cost of the contract for upgrade of the Mirage 2000 with Thales is Euro 1,470 million while the cost of the contract with HAL is Rs 2,020 crores(around 340 million) Euro. The upgrade of the aircraft is expected to be completed by mid 2021,” defence minister AK Antony recently informed Parliament.
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