‘Igla-S didn’t perform well during trials for VSHORAD’

Allegations of procedural deviations continue to be levelled against the Army’s multi-billion dollar deal for Very Short Range Air Defence (VSHORAD) in which Russia was declared the lowest bidder last week. It has been learnt that two other contenders, MBDA of France and Sweden’s SAAB, protested as the announcement was made, alleging deviations to favour Russia.

“MBDA and SAAB lodged a protest after Igla-S from Rosoboronexport was declared the L1 in the presence of all the three contenders,” an official source confirmed.

Further, SAAB has lodged an official complaint, its fourth letter, detailing procedural violations, the source stated. MBDA too has on several occasions during the course of the deal, flagged procedural deviations.

The major procedural deviations raised include non-fulfilment of the requirements specified and change in compliance requirements to suit a particular vendor.

Field trials are carried out in the presence of all the contenders. During the summer trials in 2014, the compliance required six missiles to be fired of which at least four need to hit the target. The allegation is that Igla-S hit the target only once while the others had at least four hits. During re-trials in 2016, the compliance was changed from shooting down targets to only tracking and locking them. Another allegation is that Igla-S is no longer in production as Russia has started replacing it with a next generation variant called 9K333 Verba.

‘No deviations’

A defence official said on condition of anonymity that no procedure had been violated and the procurement procedure was followed. When contacted, the Army and the companies declined comment.

The deal saw several rounds of trials and re-trials since 2012. The Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued in October 2010 for over 5,000 missiles, 258 single launchers and 258 multi-launchers. Five contenders responded and eventually three made it to the trials — MBDA, Rosoboronexport and SAAB. Eventually all three companies were declared technically compliant last year.

While the benchmark price arrived at by the Army was just over $2 bn, Rosoboronexport’s bid was much lower at around $1.47 bn, SAAB at about $2.6 bn, and MBDA at about $3.68 bn.

This led to a division within the Ministry on how to proceed given such low bid from the Russians compared to the benchmark price arrived at by the Army.