India floats $750 mn global tender to buy choppers

India floats $750 mn global tender to buy choppers New Delhi July 2, 2008: The government is all set to float its biggest military tender this year worth a whopping $750 millionfor buying 197 light utility helicopters for the armed forces with three of the six bidding companies being giant American aviation transnationals.

A request for proposals for the Rs 3,000-crore contract to buy 133 helicopters for Army Aviation and another 64 for Indian Air Force are to be floated tomorrow, officials said. New helicopters are expected to replace by 2010 Army and IAF's ageing fleet of Cheetah and Chetak choppers, which have been in service for the past over four decades, well past their service ceiling. All the helicopters are to be procured off the shelf with state-owned HAL being entrusted with only maintenance. The new choppers are being brought on fast track basis to shore up army formations guarding the dizzy Himalayan borders with China and Pakistan. Like the IAF's $10 billion contract to purchase 126 fighters, the foreign company winning the lucrative contract would have to invest 50 per cent as offsets in India. The three US companies invited to submit their bids are Bell Helicopters with their Shen 407 light choppers, McDonnel Douglas with their AH-64 A and Sikorsky with their S-3000 helicopters. Other bidders are European consortium Eurocopter, Russian Rosenbroexport with their new range of Kamov light helicopters and Italian firm Augusta Westland. "The companies have been given three months time to submit their bids," a Defence Ministry official said, adding it was proposed to complete summer and winter trials for the helicopters by 2009.