The Rs 3,546 crore($750 million) deal for 12 AgustaWestland AW-101 helicopters for VVIP transportation by Indian Air Force is going to be sc...
It issued a formal show-cause notice to the UK-based subsidiary of Finmeccanica to explain within a week why the contract should not be cancelled.
The Times of India had reported on Thursday that the government was fast veering around to cancelling the VVIP helicopter deal after it first put on hold all further payments to AgustaWestland since the deal was fast emerging as a test-case for defence minister AK Antony, who has built his entire political career on probity, with fingers being raised about the year-long delay in ordering a CBI probe despite allegations of huge kickbacks in the deal consistently emanating for almost an year.
“If the contracts for the Bofors howitzers and the HDW submarines in the mid-1980s could be terminated midway, even if they hitthe operational readiness and modernization of the armed forces in a major way, these are just choppers meant for VVIP travel,” saida top government source had said on Thursday.
Despite having inducted only three of the AW-101 helicopters till now, with the remaining nine slated for delivery in batches of three each in March, May and July, the defence ministry has earlier this week put onhold all further payments to AgustaWestland. India so far has paid a little over 50% of the total amount to this UK-based subsidiary of Italian military giant Finmeccanica.
According to defence ministry officials, the government will also go for blacklisting the firm. Blacklisting of Finnmeccanica will lead to affect its military business of worth $8 billion(Rs, 44,000 crore) with India.
The Italian probe report suggests that the former IAF chief S.P Tyagi had met the middlemen more than six to seven times and allegedly briefed them about the developments in the contract.
Three of the 12 AW-101 choppers contracted by India ” eight in VVIP configuration and four in non-VVIP – have already been inducted in the IAF’s elite Communication Squadron, which ferries around the President, PM and other VVIPs, at the Palam airbase, Delhi.
They are slated to replace the ageing Russian-origin Mi-8s and Mi-17s being currently used to fly VVIPs within the country. The AW-101s, for instance, have robust self-defence systems like missile-approach warners, chaff and flare dispensers and directed infra-red electronic counter-measures to protect VVIPs on board.
In the VVIP configuration, they ferry only 10 passengers instead of the usual 40.
Another concern of the Special Protection Group (SPG), which provides proximate security to the PM, was the helicopters have “a high tail boom” to allow cars to come right next to the rear exit staircase without “exposing” VVIPs to a threat from anyone in the vicinity.
Earlier, India had inducted five mid-sized Embraer 135BJ Legacy jets, under a Rs 727-crore deal in September 2003, and three Business Boeing Jets (BBJs), under a Rs 937-crore contract in October 2005, for the travel of VVIPs.
The BBJs also have advanced self-protection suites to guard against missiles and other threats. While the Legacy jets replaced old HS-748 Avros with the Communication Squadron, the BBJs substituted the two 737-200 aircraft bought in 1983.
The IAF on Friday said it will continue training its pilots on the first batch of three AgustaWestland helicopters delivered last December, till the government takes a final decision.
