The Defence Ministry has issued a global request for proposal for procuring 95 mini-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy expected to be worth over Rs 50 crore.
"The RFP was issued last fortnight for which a number of Indian and foreign manufacturers have responded,” Defence Ministry sources said to Defencenow.Com here.
The two companies who have responded so far included Israeli Bluebird and American Aerovironment.
They said of the 95 UAVs, 60 would be given to the IAF and the remaining would be provided to the Navy for deployment over maritime zone.
Sources said earlier the plan was to place order for a larger number of min UAVs for the three services but delays by the Army in finalising its plans forced the Ministry to go for a limited tender quantity.
However, the Army has now come up with a global RFI for mini UAVs and is expected to issue a global tender by the end of this fiscal.
All the three services are now operating their Israeli Searcher and Heron UAVs. The IAF has placed orders for loitering UAVs and ammunition called HAROP from Israel and the Army has plans of placing orders for more such munitions.
The DRDO has also been working on developing High Altitude Long Range combat UAVs along with the RUSTOM programme for developing medium range UAVs. |