Naval version of Tejas stuck in limbo

India’s naval version of the light combat aircraft, Tejas, is in limbo. The project, which is four years behind schedule, is now on the backburner, and Indian Navy is looking to foreign aircraft manufacturers for a new generation multi-role combat aircraft to beef up its naval aviation strength.

The development of the aircraft is getting delayed because, US’s Lockheed Martin, the lowest bidder identified by the LCA’s designer Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), has neither the approval nor the licence by the US government to carry out the “full gambit of work identified”.

The work involves developing a modified LCA to make it compatible with the Indian Navy’s requirements, for which Rs600 crore had been sanctioned.

Despite Lockheed’s problem, no efforts have been made to approach the second lowest bidder. “It's been more than a year since foreign aircraft-makers responded to the request for proposal (RFP) of DRDO's (Defence Research and Development Organisation’s) ADA for the naval variant of Tejas, but ADA has yet to take a decision on selection of one of them,” said an official.

The project is now languishing “due to delays in decisions by the authorities concerned,” he said.

The foreign companies which responded to the ADA’s RFPs include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Saab, Dassault, Eurofighter and MiG.

DRDO sources said there were many gaps in the proposal submitted by Lockheed Martin. “Additional time (six months) was granted to them (Lockheed) for obtaining the necessary approvals (from the US government) and revising the area of work so as to cover all the aspects,” said the source.

Going slow
That period lapsed in September 2009, but the government has not approached the second lowest bidder as stated in the existing rules.

“Normally, only a period of 60- 90 days is given but in this case, initially a period of two months was granted verbally, followed up by another three months. It is not clear as to what ADA plans to do now or who is bearing the cost of this delay,” said the source.
PS Subramanyam, director, ADA, told DNA he could not provide confidential details on the bidding process but said the RFP was still under consideration.

The Indian Navy is now looking at a proven fighter aircraft rather than an experimental one like the LCA. It is seeking a new generation multi-role fighter aircraft and has floated requests for information (RFI) to global manufacturers to beef up its aircraft carriers, INS Viraat or INS Vikramaditya (formerly Gorshkov from Russia).

Currently, Indian Navy is equipped with Russian MiG-29Ks and the British vintage Sea Harriers.