India to deploy radars worth Rs 40,000 crore in 10 years

BANGALORE: India is expected to deploy radars worth about Rs 40,000 crore in the next one decade, a key official said today. ".....I understand that around Rs 40,000 crore worth of radars are going to be inducted (by the Armed Forces) in the next 10 years", Director (R&D) of defence PSU, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), I V Sarma, said.

Radars and associated systems contribute about 25 per cent of the Bangalore-headquartered defence electronics company. "Past five years and the next five years...it's a sort of golden age for the radars in the country", he said at the eighth International Radar Symposium India-2011 (IRSI-11), inaugurated by V K Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to Defence Minster and Director General of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) here.

Meanwhile, Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), a Bangalore-based DRDO lab, is developing "Through Wall Imaging Radar". "It's to detect men hiding behind the walls, multiple walls.....", LRDE Director S Varadarajan said, delivering the R P Shenoy endowment lecture on the occasion.

He said LRDE has also taken up development of Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, to be fitted on the proposed Light Combat Aircraft-MK II. This radar is expected to be flight-worthy and "proven in all aspects" in two-three years, Varadarajan added.

Around 600 radar experts from India and abroad are participating in the symposium. The associated Radar India Exhibitions comprising 80 stalls with more than 50 companies of international repute, participating directly and through their Indian counterparts, is a major attraction.