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| SAAB RBS 70 (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — India's $1.5 billion global tender for man-portable very short-range air defense (VSHORAD) systems is facing cancellation for the second time since it was launched in 2010 — this time in favor of a domestic-companies-only competition, a Ministry of Defence source said.
While the flight trials of the competing systems were completed in 2013, the tender may be canceled because competitors MBDA, Rosoboronexport and Saab in the past have claimed there was a lack of transparency in the procurement process, the MoD source said. The government is weighing a new VSHORAD tender in the Buy and Make (India) category, restricted to Indian companies, the source said.
For the 2010 tender, Russia's Rosoboronexport fielded the Igla-S, Swedish company Saab offered the RBS 70 NG and France-based MBDA offered the Mistral system for trials.
The procurement process was also halted in 2012 as the MoD studied a proposal from US company Raytheon to supply the Stinger man-portable VSHORAD on a government-to-government basis. However, negotiations yielded no agreement because of issues relating to the transfer of technology.
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