The government has decided to embark on a fresh acquisition process to acquire about 400 155 mm “towed” guns for the Indian Army, Army sources said on Sunday. An earlier Request for Proposal Process (RFP) has been scrapped following the decision by the government to put acquisitions from Singapore Technologies — one of the two vendors in the fray — on hold. Singapore Technologies is being probed by the CBI in the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) scam case. Continuation of the earlier acquisition process would have meant a situation when only one vendor — BAE systems — would have been in the fray resulting in a single vendor situation. “The government has decided to embark on a fresh acquisition process,” the Army sources said, adding that a Request for Interest (RFI) has been issued.
This is not the first time that the RFP process has been scrapped. In 2007, the RFP process had been scrapped following the Army’s decision to reject the Bofors guns for purchase. At that time, field trials had been conducted for four years in which the Bofors gun and the Israeli Soltem guns were tested. Though the Bofors guns had then performed better than the Soltem guns during trials, the Army eventually decided then that the Bofors guns did not meet its qualitative requirements.
There have been no artillery acquisitions for the past two decades. Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh had recently expressed confidence that there would be some artillery acquisitions, probably by the end of this year itself.
Meanwhile, Navy sources in New Delhi also said on Sunday that the Navy intends to expand its presence in the Lakshadweep island in the wake of recent incidents of piracy and illegal poaching near the island chain.