 |
| K-9 Thunder howitzer (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — In a major boost to India's private sector, Larsen & Toubro, jointly with South Korea's Samsung Techwin, beat Russia's Rosoboronexport in the Indian Army's $1 billion tender for a 155mm howitzer gun.
Larsen and Samsung fielded the K-9 Vajra tracked howitzer against the Russian 2S19 MSTA howitzer in 2013 and 2014 trials, and the K-9 beat the Russian gun on several technical features, a Ministry of Defence official said.
A Larsen executive confirmed that the MoD informed the company about being short-listed and that price negotiations will begin soon.
This would be the second time that a domestic company beat an overseas competitor in a big-ticket global tender. In 2010, domestic defense major Tata Power Strategic Electronics Division beat Selex Sistemi Integrati of Italy to win the $260 million modernization of airfield infrastructure project.
The tender for the tracked guns, issued in 2011, was a rebid of a 2007 tender, and was issued to India's Tata Power, Larsen Bharat Earth Movers Ltd. (BEML) and Rosoboronexport. Larsen teamed with Samsung while state-owned BEML united with Slovak company Konstrukha.
Read the full story at DefenseNews