The Hindu : National : Cabinet panel nod for `Airawat' project

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 10, 2004

National

National

Cabinet panel nod for `Airawat' project

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 9. Barely a year after inking a multi-billion dollar deal to import aircraft mounted radars called Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS), the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) today approved the revival of a local project of the same nature that was abandoned after an air crash near Chennai in early `99.

``The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Air Force will jointly cooperate in the development of the system,'' said the Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, emerging from the CCS meeting that also approved an omnibus defence agreement between India and Brazil. The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, chaired the meeting.

The project has been given a timeframe of seven years and the development cost has been pegged at Rs 1,800 crores. Though the three imported AWACS are expected to meet India's needs for a decade and more, the recent breakthroughs in radar technology by DRDO convinced the Government to clear its proposal for resuming work on the abandoned `Airawat' project.

The Government is also encouraged by the fact that Indian defence scientists are providing technical solutions to integrating radars, avionics and data links of the imported radars, with Israel providing the rest of the equipment and Russia the planes.

Last month, a leading military scientist, V. K. Aatre, had said the DRDO was capable of developing several types of radars, including weapon-locating and aircraft mounted radars.

The imported AWACS are expected to be in service by 2007, which will make India the only country in the region to possess these `eyes in the sky,' with a surveillance radius of 800 kms from a height of 30,000 feet. Only a select group of countries, including the U.S., Russia, France, Germany Japan, Saudi Arabia and Sweden, possesses AWACS.

With the help of the experience gained from `Airawat,' India has been able to acquire the latest in air-borne radars with a platform that will be easy to maintain, since the Indian Air Force possesses similar planes for troop lift and air-to-air refuelling.

The importance of these `eyes in the sky' can be judged from the fact that the U.S. had pressured Israel into cancelling a firm contract with China for AWACS.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National