New Delhi,
\nThe Ministry of Defence (MoD) is to decide if 11 more attack helicopters are to be procured as a follow on to the existing order of 22 \u2018AH-64-D Apache\u2019 copters from US-based giant Boeing.<\/p>\n
The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), the highest decision-making body of the MoD, is to meet after Independence Day. However, \u201cwrinkles\u201d of the purchase are still being ironed out for the project that is expected to cost about $900 million ( Rs 60,000 crore). The DAC will assess a request made by the Army, which wants the MoD to exercise the \u201coption clause\u201d that allows the purchase of 11 more helicopters. The MoD\u2019s finance wing has its reservations and is not in favour of giving the copters to the Army as the first lot of 22 is contracted for the Air Force.<\/p>\n
The Services Capital Acquisition Categorisation Higher Committee, with representatives of the IAF and the Army, has decided that the 11 copters should be taken as the capability was needed. \u201cThe narrow matters of inter-service operations cannot hold back the use of helicopters,\u201d an official said.<\/p>\n
The first lot of 22 copters approved by the MoD in September 2015 has been allocated to the IAF, the Army wants the follow-on order for itself. The US copter had won the bid in an open competition beating the Russian built Mi-28-H.<\/p>\n
For a number of years, the Army and the IAF have been sparring over who should operate the future fleet of Apache copters. The Army initially asked for the gunships to be inducted into its ranks, or for the IAF to at least share the helicopters with the ground forces. The IAF, however, rejected both proposals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi, The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is to decide if 11 more attack helicopters are to be procured as a follow on to the existing order of 22 \u2018AH-64-D Apache\u2019 copters from US-based giant Boeing. The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), the highest decision-making body of the MoD, is to meet after Independence Day. However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2012,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010\/revisions\/2012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}