Elbit Systems has been awarded an
approximately US$173 million contract to provide close to 200 Remote Controlled
Weapon Stations (RCWS) to the Navy and Coast Guard of India. The contract will
be implemented over a five-year period. Under the contract, Elbit Systems will
provide lightweight, fully stabilised dual-axis naval RCWS to be installed on-board
a wide range of vessels. Each of the naval RCWS to be provided will house a Kord
12.7mm heavy machine gun and ammunition, a fire-control system and a modular
optronic sensor suite.
As part of its direct
industrial offsets commitment, INDRA has partnered with BEL for helping the
latter develop the RAWL-03 digital, 3-D, multi-purpose L-band naval radar for
use by smaller naval vessels, such as guided-missile corvettes and shallow-water
ASW vessels.
INDRA had entered the Indian
market back in 2007 and INDRA Sistemas India Pvt
Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of INDRA, was incorporated in March 2009. The
same year, this subsidiary was awarded the contract for automation of ATC systems
at 38 airports managed by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), followed by a
contract for nine secondary surveillance radars, plus instrument landing
systems and ATC training simulators at four metro Airports—Delhi, Mumbai,
Chennai and Kolkata. In the railways-related infrastructure sector too, INDRA
was awarded with several contracts. For the metros, INDRA has to date implemented
solutions for automatic fare collection system for the Kolkata Metro, Delhi
Airport Metro, Mumbai Metro One, and the first monorail in India. For highways,
INDRA has implemented solutions for highway traffic management system for more
than 95km in Rajasthan, and for toll management systems in 88 lanes in Andhra
Pradesh and Karnataka. INDRA has also provided design and consultation services
for the central control at the Indira Gandhi International Airport and for the
bus rapid transit corridor in Delhi, known as the Delhi integrated multi-mode
transport system (DIMTS).
In
the military-industrial sector, INDRA in 2016 entered into a workshare
agreement with BEL for the design and supply of EW systems for the
Indian Navy (Dolphin-2 ESM sensors for SSKs and SSBNs) and Army (the Himraaj
and Himshakti CEWS network for deployment over mountainous terrain).
In August 2008, BEL received a Request
For Proposal (RFP) from the MoD for supplying one ‘Himraaj’ Low-Intensity
Conflict Electronic Warfare System (LICEW), which had been developed by the DRDO’s
Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL). In February 2009, BEL submitted
the techno-commercial proposal in a consortium with Electronics Corp of India Ltd
(ECIL) for Rs.188.83 crore, which included Rs.16.53 crore towards Annual
Maintenance Contract (AMC) and Rs.1.26 crore towards installation charges. The
work share of ECIL comprised of major assembly units viz., three units of
Control Centre (CC), three units of Cellular Communications Interception Sub-system
(CCIS) and six units of Radio Relay Repeater Stations (RRRS), along with
Engineering Support (ES) package. As against the cost of Rs.91.02 crore submitted
in February 2009 by ECIL (Rs.71.67 crore for major assembly units, Rs.10.75
crore for ES package and Rs.8.60 crore for AMC), BEL, while submitting in
February 2009 the commercial proposal to the MoD, quoted Rs.65.01 crore without
obtaining the consent of ECIL. In April 2012, ECIL expressed its inability to
accept the offer on the grounds that reduced prices were commercially not viable.
Consequently, BEL decided in April 2012 to relieve ECIL from the commitment of
execution of the workshare and to execute the entire project independently. BEL’s
bid was the lowest and the MoD in July 2011 signed a contract for the supply of
one LICEW system at a total cost of Rs.188.83 crore. As per the contract, deliveries
were to be completed within 18 months of signing the contract, i.e. January 11,
2013. The RFP was followed by a No-Cost-No-Commitment (NCNC) demonstration,
which was held in December 2009. During the NCNC demonstrations, major changes
were proposed by the MoD. Failure to ensure the requirements of the customer at
the time of signing the contract in July 2011, but after submitting the quote
in February 2009, resulted in additional expenditure due to changes in
equipment/OEM effected by the customer post-submission of the quote. The work
of ECIL was completed at a cost of Rs.65.09 crore as against the quoted rate of
Rs.69.56 crore. However, delays in obtaining amendments for changes in the OEM’s
specifications contributed to delayed deliveries. The MoD levied liquidated
damages (LD) of Rs.8.97 crore for the delayed supplies. As a result, BEL had to
incur a loss of Rs.56.43 crore due to execution of this project. BEL completed
the Project in March 2015 after a delay of 26 months by incurring a cost of Rs.218.42
crore, against which it earned Rs.170.96 crore, resulting in a loss of Rs.47.46
crore against the envisaged profit of Rs.22.10 crore.
The ‘Himshakti’ comes in two different
versions. For the Indian Army, it is designed as a CIEWS system, whereas for
the IAF it is known as the Ground-Based Mobile ELINT System (GBMES), whose
first units were delivered to the IAF on March 18, 2018. The GBMES comprises
one Control Station (CS) and three Receiving Stations (RS) integrated in
master/slave concept to search, detect, monitor, record and process the hostile
emissions as well as to find out the location of the emitter, thereby
fulfilling the strategic EW requirements of the IAF. One of the three RS has
also been configured to operate in master/slave configuration (with minimal
degradation) in the absence of a control station. Each RS contains three ELINT
Receiver Segments in the 70 MHz–40 GHz frequency range. In addition, one
Communications Intelligence (COMINT) Receiver Segment, operating in 30-1000 MHz
frequency range, intercepts and monitors the COMINT signals. Additional details
of the Himraaj GBMES can be found here:
https://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/English/IITM/28______GBMES_(Project_HIMRAJ)_(1).pdf
In addition, INDRA has also
bagged the contract for for co-developing with BEL a family of VSAT-based rapidly
transportable Ku-band SATCOM systems for all three armed services, as well as
for the National Nuclear Command Authority and the Strategic Forces Command.
These systems provide fast and secure communications, notably amplifying the
transmission's bandwidth and increasing the data transmission capacity. Furthermore,
they are equipped with the capacity for using commercial and military
communications satellites, thereby broadening the coverage of communications
and lowering operating costs.
INDRA was also selected by
TATA Power SED for supplying navaids for all IAF air bases under the MAFI
project.
PGMs Being Developed By DRDO
Gautam Standoff Glide Bomb
Gaurav Standoff Glide-Bomb
Rocket-Powered Standoff LGB
SAAW Rocket-Powered DEW
Nag, Helina & Dhruvastra ATGMs
SANT Air-Launched Anti-Armour Missile With MMW Seeker
Medium-Range MPATGM
Long-Range ATGM Version of MPATGM
The DRDO will be well-advised to develop
a wire-guided version of the long-range ATGM, or a FOG-ATGM like the Red
Arrow-10A/AFT-10 from NORINCO, which is shown below.
