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The Defence Ministry is shortly expected to release project-specific implementation guidelines for the 111 naval utility helicopters to be procured under the Strategic Partnership (SP) model. However, foreign companies say there is still some clarity required on crucial legal, liability and technology transfer issues. “There are two important issues that need clarity. One is legal. We can’t sell a submarine or fighter jet to a private company. Global regulations do not allow that. It has to be to a government-owned company. So, there has to be a government-to-government component in the end,” a top executive of a foreign company said. Large infrastructure For the first time, under the SP model, Indian private companies will get to tie up with global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and build major defence platforms in India under technology transfer. So far, it was defence public sector undertakings (DPSUs) which played the lead role. The other issue, he said, was about the liability of the end product. “For us to stand guarantee to the finished product built by a local company is a problem. There has to be a back-end mechanism to enable us,” he said. This liability issue was one of the major reasons the earlier medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal for 126 jets got derailed at the contract negotiation stage, after Dassault Aviation refused to stand guarantee to the aircraft manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL).
