India must seal $2.5 billion US chopper deals soon to avoid price hike: Boeing

NEW DELHI: India will have to fast-track the long-pending approvals for 22 Apache attack and 15 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters if it does not want a major cost escalation in the two deals currently worth around $2.5 billion.

US aviation major Boeing on Friday obliquely warned of a price hike if India did not close the two deals for its two iconic helicopters soon. "We are awaiting the Indian government's decision. We have extended the validity of our commercial bids when asked (in the past). But there is a point beyond which we cannot (hold the price line) due to inflationary pressures," Boeing India chief Pratyush Kumar said.

As was first reported by TOI, the AH-64 Apache gunships and the CH-47F Chinooks had outclassed their Russian rivals, Mi-28 Havocs and Mi-26s, in extensive field trials held by IAF since the entire competition began around five years ago.
(Chinook heavy-lift helicopter, representative image by Boeing)
But the final commercial negotiations with Boeing have since then proceeded at a slow pace, with the already much-extended validity of its bids slated to finally end on March 31. The "approval process" for the two chopper deals is currently with the defence ministry's finance department. They will also have to be examined by the finance ministry before they can be submitted to the Cabinet committee on security for the final nod, said sources.

The attack helicopter project is also likely to get bigger, with the Army last year getting "in principle" approval for "ownership" of 39 Apache gunships for its own "strike" formations after the IAF gets the first 22.

Both the Apache, armed with deadly Hellfire and Stinger missiles, and the Chinooks, equipped with powerful contra-rotating tandem rotors, have seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their acquisition by India will be another shot in the arm for the US, which has already bagged defence deals worth around $10 billion for aircraft like P-8I, C-130J 'Super Hercules' and C-17 Globemaster-III over the last decade.