India, Russia for joint venture to produce GPS receivers

MOSCOW: India and Russia are negotiating a joint venture for the production of dual band GPS / GLONASS global positioning receivers for civilian and military use, an official said today.

"We are actively working on a project to establish a joint venture on Indian territory to produce various navigation equipment. In March a group of our negotiators will head there for another round of talks," CEO of Navigation and Information Systems (NIS) Alexander Gurko was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

GLONASS - the Global Navigation Satellite System - is the Russian equivalent of the US Pentagon controlled GPS.

Ahead of his New Delhi visit on Thursday Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had said he would discuss cooperation in the GLONASS project with Indian leaders.

So far, India remains the only country in the world to which Russia has agreed to provide access to military segment of GLONASS used for precision homing of guided missiles.

Russia currently has a total of 22 GLONASS satellites in orbit and at least 24 satellites would be available by the end of this year to provide navigation services worldwide.