US chopper manufacturer Bell has now backed off from the contest for 197 light utility helicopters (LUHs).
NEW DELHI: After withdrawing its bid from the Indian Air Force's (IAF) attack helicopter deal, US chopper manufacturer Bell has now backed off from the contest for 197 light utility helicopters (LUHs).
"We are not participating in the competition as our senior management felt it was not feasible for the company to comply with the offsets clause in the tender documents," a Bell Helicopters India Incorporated official said on Thursday.
The decision of Bell comes within a month of it exiting the attack helicopter bids citing problems with procurement procedure.
India had issued the request for proposals (RFP) for the 197 LUHs this July.
Bell claimed the Indian Defence Ministry had put down clauses under which the original equipment manufacturer winning the contract was bound to plough back 50 per cent of the deal amount to India as offsets, which was hard for them to comply with.
In fact, India was forced to issue a fresh tender for its LUH requirements, after cancelling the original RFP in December last following objections raised by Bell over rejection of its bids in favour of French major Eurocopter's AS-355 'Fennec'.
Bell and Eurocopter were the two final contenders and India had decided to put its weight with 'Fennec' after technical evaluation.
The US company had contended that India had unjustifiably rejected its bid and had not given it a fair chance to participate in the technical trials of their product, Bell-407 'Shen'.
As it was at the Bell's insistence that India re-tendered for the LUH, the decision of the US company to withdraw from the bid was received with surprise by the Defence Ministry, sources said.
Bell had received the fresh RFP this July along with US company Sikorsky, Russian Rosoboronexport, French Eurocopter and Italian Agusta Westland.
The earlier contract for procurement of LUHs for the Army was cancelled last December after the Defence Ministry also found the participating companies not fully compliant with the conditions in the tender, sources said.
After the cancellation of the contract, the government had re-issued the RFP by combing the requirements of the Army and the IAF that stood at 384 LUHs.
After issuing a tender for 197 LUHs, the government placed orders for the remaining number of its LUHs requirement to HAL for indigenous manufacturer of a three-tonne helicopter and also permitted the bluechip Defence public sector undertaking to set up an exclusive Helicopter division.
HAL has now begun working on development of this class of helicopter and it will produce about 200 of these choppers for use by the Army, Navy, IAF.
HAL is now looking for foreign partners to work on the development of the indigenous chopper, which will be inducted, alongside the 197 LUHs procured from foreign vendors under the present RFP.
These LUHs would be used by all the Services to replace their aging fleet of 'Cheetah' and 'Chetak' helicopters, over 400 of which are currently flying with the armed forces in various roles.
Bell had earlier withdrawn its candidature from the IAF's 22 combat helicopter contract last month as its ARH-1 'Cobra' attack helicopter could not be sold directly by the company and was available only through the Foreign Military Sales route of the US government.
Boeing -- the other US company in the attack helicopter bids -- too had decided not to submit its bid as it wanted more time to prepare its proposal. It had offered its Ah-64 'Apache' combat helicopter in the contest.
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