The Government is likely to soon begin afresh the $1 billion acquisition process for six flight mid-air refuellers for the Indian Air Force that was cancelled a few months ago, following a squabble over cost of the project and refusal of the Union finance ministry to approve the project.
This follows the cancellation earlier of the initial Request for Proposal (RFP) for procurement of the aircraft that were intended to meet the air-to-air refuelling tasks of the Indian Air Force.
The contract was to have been bagged by the European consortium EADS’ Airbus A330 multirole tanker transport (MRTT) but the RFP was then cancelled. The other contender in the fray which was knocked out during the earlier selection process was the Russian Ilyushin IL-78 refueller aircraft. The IAF currently has IL-78 refueller aircraft in its fleet.
Defence minister A.K. Antony had stated earlier that the “ministry of Finance has expressed certain reservations relating to the competitiveness of the bids and the reasonableness of the price” and that the finance ministry had told the ministry of defence (MoD) “in black and white” that it would not support that acquisition.
The Finance ministry had reportedly expressed reservations on the high price of the A-330 MRTT refuellers compared to the IL-78 aircraft.
The IAF had earlier preferred the EADS aircraft to the Russian aircraft and had recommended procurement of the A-330 MRTT.
The cancellation had hit the acquisition plans of the IAF that urgently requires the mid-air refuellers.