As part of the process to conclude the deal for procurement of 31 MQ-9B armed High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), the Defence Ministry is expected to issue the Letter of Request (LoR) to the U.S. by first week of July. This would initiate acquisition through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme of the U.S. government. Meanwhile, discussions continue to increase the indigenous content and sourcing as part of the deal, according to Ministry officials. The deal is expected to take few months to be concluded.
“The current indigenous content proposed in the MQ-9B deal is 8-9% while India is hoping it can be increased up to 15-20%. Discussions are on and General Atomics is positive to it and the U.S. government has to agree to it,” a senior Defence Ministry official said.
Some of the components will be manufactured here which can be scaled up and some of the electronics, sensors and avionics can also be manufactured here, the official said adding discussions are continuing on it. General Atomics is also in talks with several Indian companies as part of the deal, officials said.
