The government has resumed negotiations with Swiss aircraft manufacturer Pilatus. IAF uses Pilatus PC-7 basic trainer aircraft (BTA) to train rookie pilots after 75 of the turboprop planes were procured under a Rs 2,896 crore deal inked in May 2012

by Rajat Pandit

NEW DELHI: The government has resumed negotiations with Swiss aircraft manufacturer Pilatus after the company paid a penalty of around 1 million Swiss Francs imposed on it for making payoffs to absconding arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari.

IAF uses Pilatus PC-7 basic trainer aircraft (BTA) to train rookie pilots after 75 of the turboprop planes were procured under a Rs 2,896 crore deal inked in May 2012. But IAF’s case for inking contracts for 38 more such trainers for Rs 1,450 crore as well as a “maintenance transfer of technology” (MToT) pact was put on hold after the scandal involving Sanjay Bhandari erupted in 2016.

The defence ministry (MoD) in January 2018 had also suspended all business dealings with Bhandari’s Offset India Solutions (Private) Ltd and other companies, as was then reported by TOI. Bhandari, who is believed to have escaped to London, is facing cases for violating the stringent Official Secrets Act (OSA) as well as alleged financial crimes ranging from money laundering to corruption in arms deals.

But MoD has now agreed to IAF’s plea that the MToT pact with Pilatus is “critical” because the Stage-1 training of new pilots from IAF, Navy, Coast Guard and some friendly foreign countries “totally depends” on the existing PC-7 aircraft fleet, which needs regular servicing and overhaul to remain operational.

“The CNC (contract negotiation committee) is now underway for the MToT pact. But a decision is yet to be taken on constituting the separate CNC for procuring 38 additional PC-7 aircraft,” said a MoD source.

The MToT pact, incidentally, will be handled by IAF’s 5 Base Repair Depot at Sulur instead of the original plan for defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) to do it. IAF is pushing for the CNC for the additional 38 PC-7 trainers as well because it has a “sanctioned strength” of 183 BTA, with HAL mandated to deliver the rest 70 BTA, say sources.

IAF contends HAL’s development of the HTT-40 trainer is running five years behind schedule, with the aircraft yet to fully demonstrate the critical “stall-and-spin” manoeuvre and still some distance away from bulk production. But HAL wants the HTT-40, which successfully kicked off its “spin” test phase last November after completing the “stall testing”, to be backed instead of importing the additional 38 Pilatus aircraft.

Rookie fighter pilots, incidentally, receive their Stage-II and III training on the virtually obsolete Kiran aircraft and the British-origin Hawk advanced jet trainers (AJTs). The PC-7 aircraft were an emergency purchase after IAF training schedule went haywire following the grounding of the 114 old piston-engine HPT-32 aircraft -- which had long served as the BTA -- after a crash killed the pilot in August 2009.

Bhandari, on his part, had landed in trouble when several “classified” documents dealing with big-ticket defence procurement and plans were seized in an income tax raid on his premises in April 2016. The Delhi Police then registered an FIR under the OSA case against Bhandari in October 2016. Subsequently, the CBI also began a probe after it was found that Bhandari’s OIS (P) Ltd had allegedly received 7,50,000 Swiss Francs from the Pilatus company in 2010, as reported earlier by TOI.