Defence Ministry clears 11 advance warships for Navy, 6 surveillance planes for IAF

After scrapping orders given to the Pipavav shipyard, the Indian Navy has got the approval now to issue a tender worth over Rs 9,000 crore for acquiring 11 next-generation Offshore Patrol Vessels for its surface fleet.

The Defence Ministry had recently approved the scrapping of a tender for acquiring five Naval Offshore Patrol Vessels from l Amb-owned Pipavav Shipyards after long delays in the delivery schedule. The numbers have now been added to the Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessels project and instead of six, 11 of them would be acquired through a tender process under Make in India, defence sources said here.

"Acquisition proposals approved today include the DRDO designed and developed Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) Systems for the Indian Air Force, Next Generation Offshore Patrol Vessels for the Indian Navy and modular bridges for the Indian Army," Defence Ministry said in a release.

It said that in the first meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council under the new regime of Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020, the highest priority was accorded to giving the approval to Buy Indian proposals.

"Six of the seven proposals, that is, Rs 27,000 crore out of Rs 28,000 crore for which Acceptance of Necessities was granted will be sourced from the Indian industry to give a boost to the 'Make in India' and 'Atmrbhar Bharat' initiatives of the Government," it said.

In the projects cleared today, the major one was to approve the development of six Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEWC) Block-2 aircraft on the Airbus aircraft to be procured from Air India fleet.

( With inputs from ANI )