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| Indian Army tender for 197 Eurocopter choppers scrapped | | | New Delhi | Dec 6
Pointing to discrepancies in the evaluation process, the defence ministry Thursday scrapped an Indian Army tender for 197 Eurocopter Fennec helicopters, saying a fresh request would be sent out soon.
'The current RFP (request for proposal) has been scrapped. A fresh RFP will soon be sent out,' defence ministry spokesperson Sitanshu Kar told IANS.
On Nov 26, IANS had reported that the $550 billion tender could be cancelled.
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 (MRCS).
The IAF had floated its tender for the jets in August. With Eurocopter now under a cloud, this could also impact on the Typhoon, but officials are tight-lipped on this for the moment.
For almost a year now, Eurocopter had been making it known that it had all but bagged the $550 million order, even as the other contender, Bell Helicopter, said it been unfairly ousted from the race.
However, in June, it emerged there were gross irregularities in the evaluation process.
These related to the machine Eurocopter had fielded for the trials and the presence of a go-between in the deal.
This apart, the US government is known to have lodged two complaints saying Bell had been disqualified on 'flimsy grounds'.
The final nail in the coffin was a report by India's corruption watchdog Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) saying there were sufficient grounds for scrapping the tender.
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. |
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