Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 15: The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) on Thursday approved the deal for procurement of US-made armed MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones (armed Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicles UAV) from General Atomics of the U.S., defence sources confirmed.
An announcement on the deal is expected to be made during the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US next week. The deal is now awaiting final approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security.
The DAC chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met on Thursday morning and the long pending deal for High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAVs was on the agenda and approved it.
India will buy 31 drones made by General Atomics worth slightly over $3 billion. The Navy will be getting up to 14 of them, the rest split between the Army and the Air Force. It also includes Maintenance, Overhaul and Repair (MRO) of the platforms India, officials stated.
Initially it was planned that the Army, Navy and Air Force will get 10 UAVs each. However, Navy has the most pressing requirement for these HALE platforms which will significantly enhance its maritime surveillance capability over the Indian Ocean Region while reducing the stress on the P-8I maritime patrol aircraft.
In December, Navy Chief Admiral R. Hari Kumar had said the case was in progress and at a stage “where we are discussing if numbers need to be rationalised or kept as it is.”
Indian Navy leased the two MQ-9As in 2020, which has since been extended. In November 2022, General Atomics announced that the RPAs completed 10,000 flight hours during a period of two years, with the maiden flight taking place on November 21, 2020 and have helped the Indian Navy to cover over 14 million square miles of operating area.
At Aero India in Bengaluru in February 2023, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and General Atomics announced that the turbo-propeller engines which power the MQ-9 will be supported by HAL’s engine division for the Indian market. The companies are looking to formulate a comprehensive engine Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) programme for upcoming HALE RPA projects, a joint statement had said.
The Guardian, which is the maritime variant of the Predator MQ-9 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), has a maximum endurance of 40 hours and a maximum flying altitude of 40,000 feet. It has a 360 degree maritime surveillance radar and an optional multimode maritime surface search radar.
Featuring unmatched operational flexibility, the MQ-9A ‘Reaper’ has an endurance of over 27 hours, speeds of 240 KTAS (knots true airspeed) and can operate up to 50,000 feet, according to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.
The US President Joe Biden has made deepening defence ties with India a priority to counter China’s growing dominance, and has offered to collaborate on military technology even though the two countries lack a formal security alliance. The ministry’s “Acceptance of Necessity” is the first step in the procurement process, which now needs clearance from Modi’s cabinet.
The US government approved the sale of 30 drones to India more than two years ago, but the Defence Ministry had been sitting on the decision. However, once dates for Modi’s four-day US visit starting June 21 were finalised, the Biden administration started nudging India to show progress on the deal.
The drones will predominantly be used by the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean Region. The Indian Navy has leased two MQ-9B unarmed drones since November 2020 for surveillance.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan finished his two-day visit to Delhi on Wednesday, meeting his counterpart Ajit Doval, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and Modi. A week earlier, American Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin had spent two days in Delhi and announced a joint roadmap for defence industry cooperation, providing a boost to India’s ambitions of manufacturing more weapons within the country.
The US has been trying to wean India away from its traditional arms dependence on Russia, its largest exporter of weapons for decades. The Biden administration is also poised to approve manufacturing of General Electric’s engines in India for the country’s domestically produced fighter jets, which is also expected to be announced during Modi’s visit.
