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The Indian Navy has wet-leased two Augusta Westland-139 choppers from an Indian civilian chopper operator for carrying out logistics operations.
Indian Navy officials said that one of the two choppers taken on wet lease from the Indian civilian chopper operator Global Vectra has already been deployed for logistics operations on one of the two sea boards in the country. The contract for the wet-leased programme was signed a few months ago, and the Indian Navy will not use them for any military operations and will keep them for transporting logistics to the ships, they said. The two choppers have been contracted for wet leased for the Western and Eastern Commands of the Indian Navy, and the force may take a call on increasing the number of leased choppers after getting feedback from the formations on the ground. The Indian Navy has multiple chopper procurement programmes at the moment, including the acquisition of UH Marine choppers from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the Naval Utility Helicopters project and the force is also looking at inducting large-size multirole choppers. The move to lease choppers came around the time when the Indian Navy ALH Dhruv choppers remained on the ground for a long time, and even now are flying under observation. The choppers had to be grounded for a long time due to technical defects, which came to light after a Coast Guard chopper crashed in Porbandar. (ANI)
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