NEWTOWN, Conn. - India is preparing to undertake a procurement program aimed at replacing the Indian Air Force' (IAF) locally-constructed fleet of Hawker Siddeley 748 Avro transports. The Avros - built by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) under license from Hawker Siddeley - were brought into IAF service in the 1960s and due to their age and condition the Air Force has been eager to find a replacement for them. Efforts to extend the Avro's service lives by 5-8 years have proven fruitless, with the project failing to get off the ground.
The replacement process began on July 23, 2012, when the Defense Ministry first issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) under the "Buy and Make - Indian" category. This category for Indian procurement requires a purchase from an Indian vendor who may or may not be in partnership or involved in a joint venture with a foreign supplier of the original material. It also requires 50 percent indigenous content in any purchase, but since under the requirement a local producer may team up with a foreign vendor the initial batch purchase of any platform may be sourced from abroad before being followed by licensed production in India.
The 2012 RFP called for the procurement of 56 new twin-engine cargo aircraft capable of handling a 6-8-ton payload and reaching a cruise speed of 500 mph, and having a range of 1,600-1,700 miles. Under the terms floated, the chosen foreign vendor must provide 16 units in fly-away condition, with the remainder to be built in India under license with a local manufacturer. But the replacement project was deferred by the Defense Acquisition Council (DAC) twice: in December 2013, and again in February 2014 due to funding pressures and the lack of a willing foreign vendor with which to form partnership tie-ins with local industry .
But with a new right-leaning Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government now in power the project has been revived. The BJP government is eager to jump-start long-delayed and listless modernization programs and, like its predecessors, to involve local industry as much as possible. However, whereas the former governments were beholden to entrenched bureaucratic interests that favored state-owned enterprises, the BJP wants private sector involvement as much as possible in order to bolster India's dysfunctional and inefficient defense industry. Whether the eagerness of the new government to cut through India's morass of bureaucratic red tape and to bring private concerns on board will be enough to entice hesitant foreign vendors remains questionable, however, as the Avro replacement project once again attempts to gain traction.
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