India signs deal with US for long-range maritime aircraft

New Delhi, Jan 5 (PTI) In its largest defence purchase
ever from the US, India has signed a deal to buy eight
maritime aircraft from aerospace major Boeing to strengthen
the Navy's intelligence gathering capabilities.

The USD 2.1 billion contract for eight Boeing P-8I
long-range maritime reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft was signed
between a Defence Ministry official and Boeing's country head
Vivek Lall here on January 1, Navy and industry sources said
here Monday.

The government had approved the deal in its last Cabinet
Committee on Security (CCS) meeting in 2008 after protracted
talks.

The deal with Boeing, sources said, was through a direct
commercial contract and issues such as end-user verification
agreement between India and US for these defence products were
still pending, sources said.

The Navy will get its first aircraft under the deal by
2012-13 and the rest of the aircraft would be delivered in
phases by 2015-16, sources said.

The contract also provided for the Navy to place
follow-on orders for about eight more of these aircraft, being
purchased to replace the existing fleet of eight ageing
Tupolev-142M turboprops.

The P-8I is armed with torpedoes, depth bombs and Harpoon
anti-ship missiles and is capable of anti-submarine warfare
and anti-surface warfare.

Expected to help in plugging the existing gaps in Navy's
maritime reconnaissance capabilities, the aircraft has an
operating range of over 600 nautical miles.

Customised to meet Indian Navy's needs and based on the
Boeing 737 commercial airliner, the P-8I aircraft is a variant
of the P-8A Poseidon multi-mission maritime aircraft under
development for the US Navy to replace its P-3C Orion fleet.

Interestingly, the P8I deal would be the largest deal
India signed with the US, after the USD 962 million deal
signed in 2007 for six Lockheed Martin's C-130J 'Super
Hercules' transport aicraft for its special forces.

Its purchase would greatly help inter-operability and
supportability objectives of both the Indian and US Navies,
according to a Boeing official here.

Apart from the Tu-142Ms, the Indian Navy currently uses
IL-38SDs and Dorniers for surveillance operations in the
Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

It was also looking for six advanced medium-range
maritime reconnaissance aircraft at a budget of Rs 1,600 crore
to further boost its patrol and intelligence gathering
capabilities in the IOR. PTI