Right ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the United States on June 21, Centre approved a tri-service proposal to acquire 31 MQ 9-Predator B armed drones from the US.
This is reportedly the first major purchase since Indian Navy acquired 24 MH 60 R anti-submarine warfare helicopters from America in February 2020.
After the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) headed by PM Modi gave a nod to General Electric manufacturing F-414 jet engines in India, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approved the acceptance of necessity (AON) for bringing the armed drones to India.
Besides indicating the stronger bilateral defence cooperation, the India-US defence deal also emphasizes on the need of stand-off weapons delivery platforms in Indian military.
The Predator-B drone owns the reputation of being a top-of-the-line weapon platform that is used for high-value targeting of the enemy with its four Hell-Fire air-to-ground missiles and precision bombs.
As the Indian DRDO is yet to come up with a viable armed drone, the Modi government had to resort to outright purchase of Predator-B drones through the foreign military sales route in order to ensure rule out any scope for any lobbyist or middle-men in the the entire USD 3.5 billion deal.
Following the FMS route, the US government is expected to decide on the of the drones after negotiations with the manufacturer (General Atomics in this case) and then sell it to the government of India with a minimum processing fee.
The deal will have to be cleared by the CCS after the final negotiations are complete.
It is expected that the decision to manufacture the F-414 engine in India will seriously push both the DRDO, which is designing and developing the Tejas Mark II fighter, and the HAL, which will manufacture the engine, so that the Indian Air Force (IAF) has requisite number of fighter squadrons at the turn of this decade.
