In a major opportunity for the Indian private defence manufacturing sector, the IAF has floated a Rs 12,000-crore tender to buy new transport aircraft to replace the aging Avro fleet that mandates foreign vendors to participate with an Indian partner.
The tender, which seeks 16 transport planes to be bought off the shelf with the remaining 40 to be manufactured in India, is the first major contract that will see private sector participation as the defence ministry has deliberately kept public sector unit Hindustan Aeronautics Limited out of the picture.
The request for proposals was issued on Thursday to major global aviation players including Saab, Lockheed Martin, Airbus, Ilyushin, Embraer and Alenia Aeronautica. Incidentally, Alenia Aeronautica is part of the Finmeccanica group that has been named in a CBI FIR in the VVIP chopper case.
10/05/13 Indian Express
