By VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI
NEW DELHI — The Indian Navy has declined, for now, a Russian offer to mount the Kashtan air defense system on India’s INS Vikramaditya aircraft carrier, and instead will seek a system through open competition, a Defence Ministry source said.
Originally, the former Admiral Gorshkov was to be mounted with an Indo-Israeli air defense system, the long-range surface-to-air missile system, which has been under development by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation since 2007. But technical problems created uncertainty about whether the system would ever be completed, the MoD source said.
During a recent meeting here of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation, Russia offered to mount the Kashtan close-in weapon system to meet the Russian-built carrier’s air defense needs. While the system has not been rejected outright, the Navy says it wants to explore the market for alternate systems.
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