Artillery guns tender cancelled
The Bofors 155 mm artillery towed gun has lost out yet again in India. In a setback to the Army’s modernisation programme, the ministry of defence (MoD) has cancelled the entire “request for proposal” (RFP) process for acquisition of 155 mm towed artillery guns and has initiated a fresh “request for information” (RFI), defence sources have said.
Ironically, the MoD cancelled the process on grounds of transparency since one of the two vendors in the race — Singapore Technologies Kinetics has come under a cloud following the CBI’s investigations into the Ordnance Factory Board scam. ST Kinetics and BAE Systems were the only two vendors left in the race and the trials were to take place. Since the CBI has now recommended to the MoD that ST Kinetics be blacklisted, that left only one vendor in the race is BAE Systems with its Bofors gun. According to MoD sources, the RFP process is cancelled to ensure transparency once a single vendor situation arises.
This is the second time in three years when the RFP for the 155 mm towed guns has been cancelled. In 2007 too, the MoD had cancelled the RFP following the Army’s decision to reject the Bofors gun for purchase on the grounds that it did not meet its qualitative requirements then.
When contacted about the cancellation of the RFP again and fresh issue of the RFI, BAE Systems stated, “We are looking at the (new) RFI document and deciding how to proceed.”
It was the Bofors gun that won India the Kargil war. The BAE Systems’ Bofors gun now is much more advanced that the ones India acquired in the 1980s.
In fact, just two months ago, the Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh had stated at an artillery seminar, “At the sub-continental context, Operation Vijay (the Kargil operation) is considered to be a bench mark for employment of artillery where overwhelming superiority of fire-power destroyed the intruders.”
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