The Hindu : Foreign buyer for 'Lakshya'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2002

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Foreign buyer for 'Lakshya'

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE MARCH 18 . The Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, V.K. Atre, on Monday unveiled an action plan for India's aerospace and weapons programme.

The country's unmanned target aircraft, `Lakshya', would shortly be demonstrated and sold to a ``foreign country'' for use as an aerial drone, Dr. Atre said at the inauguration of a five-day United Nations-India Workshop on Satellite-Aided Search and Rescue (SASAR) here.

But, while talking to reporters later, Dr. Atre, who is also Chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), declined to name the ``foreign country''.

`Lakshya' is a reusable target system operated by remote control from the ground to train gun and missile crew of the Army, Navy and Airforce. It will shortly be supplied to the Army. He said the other unmanned aerial vehicle, `Nishant', would be brought into service later this year.

Asked about the delay in the flight of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Technology Demonstrator 2 (TD-2), Dr. Atre said TD-2 was facing `minor' problems. But he was confident it would fly soon. Three aircraft (LCA) would fly by year-end. TD-1 was flight-tested for the first time on January 4 last.

The Kaveri power plan for the LCA would go to Russia by the middle of this year for high-altitude tests. Though the LCA presently used a General Electric (GE) engine, the Kaveri had already logged 1,000 hours of running and would be used for the LCA when cleared.

Dr. Atre said the second flight of the guided missile programme, Agni-2 — with a range of about 700 km — was planned in the next three months.

Likewise, the small `Saras' aircraft, being developed by the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), would fly by year-end.

He said India and Russia were ``about to start'' joint design of a 100-seater aircraft. The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Russian Design Bureau had already signed an agreement.

In the next five years, the Coast Guard planned a 30 per cent increase in its fleet of ships, aircraft and hovercraft and would replace 15 ageing ships, the Director General (DG) Coast Guard, O.P. Bansal, AVSM, VSM, said.

He told reporters that the Coast Guard presently had 50 ships of assorted sizes, 37 aircraft and six hovercraft. In the 10th plan (2002-07), the Coast Guard budget allocation would be Rs. 7,600 crores.

The Vice-Admiral said the Coast Guard planned to deploy ships in Bangladesh and on the West coast of Mauritius.

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