By IANS
New Delhi : In an intriguing development, a European helicopter manufacturer whose proposed deal for selling 197 machines to the Indian Army has been cancelled, confidently asserted Tuesday it was very much in the race and hoped to sign the deal soon.
“To my knowledge, the deal has not been suspended. We have never received such an official statement,” Norbert Ducrot, senior vice president of France-based Eurocopter, told reporters here.
“All that we have read (about the deal’s cancellation) is in the media. There has been no official statement, said Ducrot, who handles sales and customer relations in the Asia-Pacific region.
The defence ministry of India, which had Dec 6 announced the $550 million deal was off due to deficiencies in the evaluation process, was not immediately available for comment.
“The current RFP (request for proposal) has been scrapped. A fresh RFP will soon be sent out,” defence ministry spokesperson Sitanshu Kar had told IANS Dec 6.
In November, reports had first begun appearing that the deal was likely to be called off on the recommendation of corruption watchdog Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to whom the defence ministry had sent the file for comments.
On Dec 6, Eurocopter had issued a statement – dated Nov 5 – maintaining it was the sole contender for the Indian Army and suggesting that it was on the point of signing the deal.
On Tuesday, the company issued an identical statement on the issue.
For almost a year now, Eurocopter had been making it known that it had all but bagged the order, even as the other contender, Bell Helicopter, said it was unfairly ousted from the race.
However, in June, it emerged there were gross irregularities in the evaluation process. These related to the civilian machine Eurocopter had fielded for the trials and the presence of a go-between in the deal.
In response to this, the Eurocopter statement Tuesday said: “The AS350 B3 civilian version presented by Eurocopter in India is exactly the same helicopter as the AS550 C3 military version in terms of airframe, systems, main gear box, rotor head, blades, engine and performances.
“In the same manner, Bell has presented its civil version – the B-407 for trials in India,” the statement pointed out.
“The Indian Army will use different configurations of the helicopters according to the operational missions. The mild differences between these configurations such as structural reinforcements and hard points for armaments carriage were not yet defined before trials.
“In July 2005, the military versions of the short-listed aircraft were demonstrated and tested on ground and in flight by the Indian Army evaluation team and MoD (ministry of defence) representatives during fact finding visits that occurred within the (manufacturers) facilities in France and USA,” the statement contended.
As for the presence of middlemen, Eurocopter “insisted” it was “fully complying” with the very strict French and European regulations on this issue and had “duly abided by and signed the pre-Integrity Pact that was requested” by the Indian defence ministry.
Eurocopter is an arm of European aerospace giant EADS. Another arm of the conglomerate builds the Eurofighter Typhoon that is one of the contenders for an Indian Air Force (IAF) order for 126 multi role combat aircraft.
Five contenders were initially in the fray: Eurocopter, Bell, Italy’s Agusta, and Russia’s Kamov and Kazan. The list was then narrowed down to the Eurocopter AS 550 C3 Fennec and the Bell-407.
The Bell-407 dropped out last year after the machine it sent for evaluation could not perform a three-axis vector, an essential requirement for flying in areas like the Siachen Glacier in Jammu and Kashmir.
The three-axis vector enables the helicopter perform a ‘U’ like manoeuvre to navigate adverse weather conditions in mountainous areas.
The Indian Army desperately needs new helicopters to replace the ageing 1970s-vintage Chetak and Cheetah helicopters as it modernises and expands its Army Aviation Corps (AAC) to meet current and future rapid mobility battlefield requirements.