NEW DELHI\u00a0\u2014 Competing companies in the Indian Navy’s surface surveillance radar (SSR) tender question whether the low bidder will be able to produce the radar at its\u00a0proposed cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A\u00a0partnership of India’s\u00a0‘s domestic private sector defense major <\/span>Nova Integrated Systems\u00a0and in partnership with a subsidiary of the Tata industrial group in tie up with <\/span>Terma of Denmark has<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>emerged as the lowest<\/span> bidder, in the Indian Navy’s s<\/span>urface surveillance r<\/span>adar (SSR) tender, <\/span>say\u00a0Indian Defence Ministry sources. \u00a0of 2013, say sources in the Ministry of \u00a0Defence(MoD).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n However, executives of competing domestic companies competing \u00a0in the tender say\u00a0the Nova-Terma bid is too low and doubted if Nova can \u00a0produce the SSR could be produced at that cost. \u00a0.at this low cost.<\/span>Nova’s bid is more than five times lower than the highest bidder,\u00a0MoD sources say. Nova Integrated Systems Ltd <\/span>quoted $30 million against its <\/span>rivals Tata Power SED with $44 million and Mahindra Defence Systems with $173 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No executive of \u00a0Nova or Terma group were available to comment on the huge difference in their bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2013 <\/span>SSR tender was the first tender <\/span>issued in the Buy and Make (India) category. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If the \u00a0procurement\u00a0of SSR\u00a0does not yield results, than it will be a big blow to the Make in India initiative itself,” say Nitin Mehta, a defense analyst here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tender will take quite a time to culminate into a contract as the <\/span>procurement process is very <\/span>lengthy and it will still be quite <\/span>a long length of <\/span>time before a contract is agreed, said an Indian Navy official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Indian <\/span>Navy will\u00a0is to <\/span>procure 31 SSR systems from domestic defense companies <\/span>under the Buy & Make (India) category, in which domestic companies have to provide at least mandatory <\/span>50 percent indigenous content, said an MoD official.\u00a0The selected bidder has to provide seven years maintenance and lifetime spares support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tender was floated in June 2013 and seven domestic companies participated. In addition to Nova, Mahindra and\u00a0Tata,\u00a0\u00a0in the bids.The <\/span>bids were sent to Nova Integrated Systems Ltd , Mahindra Defence Systems , Tata Power SED , <\/span>Broadcast Engineering Consultants India, Limited (BECIL) , <\/span>Data Patterns India Private, Ltd. , <\/span>Larsen & Toubro (L& ) Ltd <\/span>and Bharat Electronics. Ltd.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n