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Looking to replace the vintage fleet of its Cheetah/Chetak choppers, the Defence Ministry on Monday approved a Rs 20,000 crore proposal to buy 200 light multirole helicopters for the Indian Army and Air Force.
As per the proposal, the 200 helicopters to be acquired by the two forces would be built in India with Indian companies in the lead. The proposal for the 200 LMRH was cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council in its meeting today. The contract is expected to be split between the L1 and L2 in the programme, defence officials said. Defence sources said major players in the project would be Tata, along with its partner Airbus, while Adani Group would be partnering with Leonardo of Italy. Bell Helicopters of the US is also expected to offer its chopper for the procurement. The Defence Ministry had issued a Request for Information (RFI) last year for the long-pending programme that has failed on multiple occasions over the last 20 years. Around 400 Cheetah and Chetak helicopters are scheduled to be retired in the upcoming years. India had chosen the Russian Ka-226 in 2014 as the replacement for the Cheetah Chetak fleet of choppers, but the programme could not move forward. The tenders issued earlier also had to be scrapped due to one reason or the other. The light choppers are essential for the Indian defence forces as they are used extensively for reconnaissance and surveillance roles along all the frontiers from Siachen in the North to Arunachal Pradesh in the Northeast and other areas. The Indian Navy is also buying light maritime choppers for search and rescue and other operations. (ANI)
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