Naval Utility Helicopter (NUH) Procurement Moved Under Buy and Make (Indian) Category

[Abingdonboy]

How is that a short term problem? RFI => RFP => selecting helicopters for the evaluation => evaluation => shortlisting => decision. Just as in all these scrapped tenders, we are talking about years of delays and if you add the tenders, it's a major pain in the a... for our forces, because the modernisation attempts will be delayed for years!



No, because make in India was the whole idea from the start so that hasn't change, since it's still a licence production. The only difference is, that it is now offered only to privat companies and the JVs with the OEM. But the problem is, as we can see for a long time in the Avro replacement, when the privat industry shows no interest in the competition! Former DM Antony started the make in India policy, invited the private industry, just as the NDA does it now for the Avro replacement too and the new DM faces the same problems too and had to delay the tender once more, because it's difficutl to find vendors and Indian JV partners that are interested. So it's silly to force any even running tender into such a policy, without knowing if the Indian industry even wants to participate. That should be considered before the tender will be opened, to not be forced to delay or even scrap things again.


The result of 5 months of the new MoD, so much for fast tracking modernisation of the forces!

Whilst I can't deny that the reissuing of bids causes delays, this is really the situation this GoI has inherited and you can't be overly critical of whatever steps are taken to address them- at least SOMETHING is being done (a depatrue from the AK Antotny school of defence procurements). Yes, it is very frustrating that these delays will be there (which is why I have stressed and hoped the new GoI takes measures to fastback the process) but any foreword motion is good and the state of paralysis we have seen for the past 2-3 years on certain crucial deals is being addressed- GREAT NEWS.

LUH - reissued => delayed

Well the NDA inherited this deal and it has been tainted for about 2-3 years now, not much else they could've done- at least the Indian Privat sector could benefit significantly.

N-LUH - (reportedly) reissued => delayed

Since the RFPs came out, have we seen any foreword movement on this deal? None. Starting from square one with a fresh impetus is probably all that could be done on this front.

NMHR - (reportedly) reissued => delayed

Well again a tainted deal but the jury is still out on what the next step is for this one, two different steps have been reported (reissuing AND moving ahead as is).

P75 - (reportedly) reissued => delayed

Same as with the NLUH deal, was there any movement on this deal at all? If it is reissued does the IN lose out? Not really because this procurement has failed to even get off the blocks.

Lightweight howitzer - soon to be reissued?

Another inherited tainted deal, any foreword movement either way will be welcome, as it stands another deal in a state of stasis.

MMRCA - soon to be reissued?

On the contrary it seems this deal is progressing at last, nothing has been mooted from either side about reissuing.



Yes, the NDA could have taken the decision to progress with tainted deals but in the noisy Indian political system this could have brought about a new age of paralysis. Starting afresh has, at the very least, reset the clock and shown a way foreword and a light at the end of a very long tunnel. And those reissuings at least see work being taken out of HAL's hands and given to the Indian private sector- this is a COLOSSAL win.


And what about the deals the GoI HAS cleared/progressed in the past 4 months?

AH-64E (seems to be going ahead)
CH-47F (same as above)
118 units of Arjun Mk.2s ordered
32 ALH Mk.3s

etc etc

 

[sancho]

I disagree, this is odd logic. Why should we care about management control if a company wishes to onvest in India to build & maybe export products that are not for our use.

Why would they invest in India and give away control, when they have the same production advantages in many other countries too. So they have alternatives if production and exporting to other countries is the aim, but that's not the point here!
Investing in the Indian defence sector is mainly aimed on getting more share of the Indian defence market, that's why EADS has teamed up with L&T, Thales with Samtel or even Sikorsky with TATA and so on. So production alone will not get any foreign company to invest big stakes into India. That's where our offest policy came into play, which forced foreign vendors to invest into Indian industry, in return for deals (btw these offsets might not accounted in the FDI I guess, but do your calculation how much 30% of the C17, P8, or C130 deals were). Since 2009/10, we have seen the next policy stepping in, which forces the vendors to team up with Indian counterparts to JV's to get larger deals. Thales joint with Samtel as part of the Mirage upgrade or Rafale deal, to produce systems in India for the requirements of Indian forces, but also to export them and we are talking about critical parts here, not only basic airframe parts as TATA is building for Sikorsky so far.
So if we leave the control to foreign players, they will look only to their benefits and interests. If our industry has the lead, they can demand more important techs or systems, which benefits them or our forces in the long run. And as said, nobody is stopping foreign vendors to get higher shares even up to 100%, but they have to provide us with more in return. It's a simply give and take!

It serves us nothing? you mean factories & investments in India are nothing?

Not for development of our industry and improving our defence development skills. Again, we are not talking about textile industry here, where we can give 1000s of jobs to low level workers, but where no R&D is necessary.
This is a matter of national security, where we a decades behind most nations and need to improve our R&D skills as fast as possible and that's not going to happen by doing simply screwdriver jobs for foreign countries.

Those are only for orders already ordered by India & for which there are offset conditions.

Wrong, former basic licence productions, or offets didn't necessarily required JVs, one could simply procure a similar product from an Indian company if available and or just divert parts of the production as a normal production deal (see Pilatus trainer production or P8I offsets), but that changed with FICV, the later howitzer copetitions and the Avro replacement and now also for a larger parts of other aircrafts. So now the vendors are forced to team up for all new licence productions and have to invest in these JV's. That's why I wouldn't be even surprised if they scrap MMRCA now, to implement the same policy, to again give more benefits to the privat industry (Reliance and Dassault surely would be happy about that), while for IAF it would be a major set back!

 

[Bang Galore]

Why would they invest in India and give away control, when they have the same production advantages in many other countries too. So they have alternatives if production and exporting to other countries is the aim, but that's not the point here!

Exactly. So what do we have to lose by offering them the ability to invest here rather than elsewhere. They can have any assumptions they want, including a better understanding of a large market.

Investing in the Indian defence sector is mainly aimed on getting more share of the Indian defence market, that's why EADS has teamed up with L&T, Thales with Samtel or even Sikorsky with TATA and so on. So production alone will not get any foreign company to invest big stakes into India. That's where our offest policy came into play, which forced foreign vendors to invest into Indian industry, in return for deals (btw these offsets might not accounted in the FDI I guess, but do your calculation how much 30% of the C17, P8, or C130 deals were). Since 2009/10, we have seen the next policy stepping in, which forces the vendors to team up with Indian counterparts to JV's to get larger deals. Thales joint with Samtel as part of the Mirage upgrade or Rafale deal, to produce systems in India for the requirements of Indian forces, but also to export them and we are talking about critical parts here, not only basic airframe parts as TATA is building for Sikorsky so far.
So if we leave the control to foreign players, they will look only to their benefits and interests. If our industry has the lead, they can demand more important techs or systems, which benefits them or our forces in the long run. And as said, nobody is stopping foreign vendors to get higher shares even up to 100%, but they have to provide us with more in return. It's a simply give and take!

That's still illogical. We shouldn't care about the reasons they want to invest because regardless of whether it is 100% foreign owned in India, we can still demand offsets or partnerships if they get an order. I'm talking about companies investing on their own before they have gotten orders or where the order quantity may not be sufficient for offsets. We are buying missiles from abroad, why not allow the company to make it in India. We benefit on costs, only the absolutely cussed would see it differently.

Not for development of our industry and improving our defence development skills. Again, we are not talking about textile industry here, where we can give 1000s of jobs to low level workers, but where no R&D is necessary.
This is a matter of national security, where we a decades behind most nations and need to improve our R&D skills as fast as possible and that's not going to happen by doing simply screwdriver jobs for foreign countries.

This is a fool's errand, It is exactly like the textile industry. If there are no requirements for offsets, we shouldn't give a damn about ownership. You seem unable to comprehend that once factories are built in India, there is a vested interest in working here and the skills that the workers & engineers pick up remain here. Many of them will branch off to their own businesses or join competitors & bring/take their knowledge there. That is how it works in real life, the communist era of doing it by fiat has long ended.

Wrong, former basic licence productions, or offets didn't necessarily required JVs, one could simply procure a similar product from an Indian company if available and or just divert parts of the production as a normal production deal (see Pilatus trainer production or P8I offsets), but that changed with FICV, the later howitzer copetitions and the Avro replacement and now also for a larger parts of other aircrafts. So now the vendors are forced to team up for all new licence productions and have to invest in these JV's. That's why I wouldn't be even surprised if they scrap MMRCA now, to implement the same policy, to again give more benefits to the privat industry (Reliance and Dassault surely would be happy about that), while for IAF it would be a major set back!

Again irrelevant. This is a forced position based on a tender. Why should companies that have no such position to take not be allowed to own their companies? You can still have rules suggesting that the companies must team up for any tender for Indian armed forces but to require a dilution of equity for orders elsewhere is just mindbogglingly stupid. That is why we got only $4 million in 12 years. Companies that team up locally work out their costs & factor them in, a company already present in India will be far more desperate to get the order & will try & leverage both on costs as well as tech,

 

[sancho]

Whilst I can't deny that the reissuing of bids causes delays, this is really the situation this GoI has inherited

That's not correct! The running tenders are passed obviously from the former MoD, which is a logical step. But the decision to scrap and re-issue them has nothing to do with the tender, or the the former government, but is the sole decision of the NDA MoD now and only because it's suits their business related policy!

The LUH deal was done! All that the MoD had to do was the selection of the winner, that's even what IAF and IA chiefs stressed the MoD to, because they want to replace their older helicopters as soon as possible. But the new MoD or more likely the PM "chose" to scrap it and re-tender it and start all over again without any relation to the former MoD!

Since the RFPs came out, have we seen any foreword movement on this deal? None. Starting from square one with a fresh impetus is probably all that could be done on this front.

Oh please, the RFP was issued in 2012 and this year we had the elections, so unless you expected the evaluation, trials and a selection to be done in a single year before the election, it went pretty much according the usual way. But if you look at the opening article, which says:

Two companies responded to the RFP - Eurocopter AS565 MB Naval Panther, a military variant of the popular Dauphin, and the AgustaWestland AW139.

You might get an idea, why this tender is a difficult one anyway. The new MoD has stressed that, they will agree to include AW to avoid a single vendor competition, which obviously would be the case here. But even then, why scrapping that tender (delay) instead of making the next move for trials and then selecting one (fast tracking)?

And what about the deals the GoI HAS cleared/progressed in the past 4 months?

AH-64E (seems to be going ahead)
CH-47F (same as above)
118 units of Arjun Mk.2s ordered
32 ALH Mk.3s

etc etc

Keep in mind that most of them were already cleard by the former MoD and pushed till after the elections (normal procedure between the parties to not take major decisions shortly before the elections) into the new FY!

Barak 1 missiles => cleared last year, now cleared again but still no ordered

Apache and Chinook, as above and against all expectations the visit of the PM in the US didn't resulted in an order

Avro replacment, cleared last year, cleared now again, new delays because of the same problems with the industry, no improvement

A330MRTT cleared last year, no news since then???

M777 cleared last year, still same offset problems with the US, no improvement from the US visit either.

...
...
...

So these are no decision that the new MoD took on their own, but things they actually took over as you said earlier and could be fixed so far. That's why even with some delays because of the elections and taking over the power, the limited progress is not that bad, since they are expected to come sooner or later. The licence production deals however, will now face crucial delays if they all are scrapped and re-issued, because it's the whole procedure that have to be done again.

 

[Bang Galore]

The LUH deal was done! All that the MoD had to do was the selection of the winner, that's even what IAF and IA chiefs stressed the MoD to, because they want to replace their older helicopters as soon as possible. But the new MoD or more likely the PM "chose" to scrap it and re-tender it and start all over again without any relation to the former MoD!

So you don't mind foreign companies based abroad winning a contract but have problems if they have a factory in India........?

The licence production deals however, will now face crucial delays if they all are scrapped and re-issued, because it's the whole procedure that have to be done again.

I thought you were in favour of Indian companies teaming up with foreign ones (of course 51% Indian ownership...) & winning the contract.......your position doesn't seem consistent.

There are delays because of the same reason there is only 49% allowed in defence. There is lobbying going on by Indian companies that is very aggressive. We may end up buying foreign stuff just reassembled in India , only costing us more because the Indian company wants their cut.

Btw, I do agree with your point that the government is not being smart by cancelling & reissuing almost decided tenders. Another few years down the chute, who gives a damn about the armed forces anyway ....

 

[sancho]

Exactly. So what do we have to lose by offering them the ability to invest here rather than elsewhere.

The ability to improve our industry! It doesn't matter where an airframe part is produced, as long as the quality is the same. But producing that part won't make you able to develop an aircraft, so our aim is not to get production regardless of what part, but to get the prodution of parts that improves our industry to be self-reliant in the long run!

We are buying missiles from abroad, why not allow the company to make it in India.

If we produce (assemble) yakhont 800 missile (base of Brahmos) in India for Russia, they export it to other countries, what is our gain?

Do we create low level jobs? Yes we do!
Do we learn how to assemble most of the parts delivered from Russia, in India? Yes we do!
Do we gain an equal share of the finacial benefits? No we don't!
Do we learn how to design, develop, modify or upgrade the missile? No we don't!


Now the same with Brahmos!

Do we create low level jobs? Yes we do!
Do we learn how to assemble most of the parts delivered from Russia, in India? Yes we do!
Do we gain an equal share of the finacial benefits? Yes we do!
Do we learn how to design, develop, modify or upgrade the missile? Yes we do!


If you still don't understand why it's not good for our industry to just produce parts, without actual development in India and for Indian forces behind it, just for the sake of getting production, I can't help you.

 

[sancho]

I thought you were in favour of Indian companies teaming up with foreign ones (of course 51% Indian ownership...) & winning the contract.......your position doesn't seem consistent.

Only because you are not able to understand, because unlike you, I am not looking at things from a single perspective, but look at the overall picture. And I don't want to delay modernisations of the forces and risk lives, only to benefit privat industry or a single company. I don't care if HAL, TATA or L&T produce it in India, as long as it is produced in India and as long as it comes as soon as possible!

We may end up buying foreign stuff just reassembled in India

That's what we do anyway! Only because the government calls it Made in India, doesn't make the product somehow Indian. That's exactly why I want our industry to improve and not to stick to basic productions like you want, because without improvements we always will be dependent

 

[Bang Galore]

The ability to improve our industry! It doesn't matter where an airframe part is produced, as long as the quality is the same. But producing that part won't make you able to develop an aircraft, so our aim is not to get production regardless of what part, but to get the prodution of parts that improves our industry to be self-reliant in the long run!

Err...how exactly do you improve your industry if they don't invest? I have repeatedly pointed out that we lose nothing if a company wants to invest for supplies that are not aimed at us.

If we produce (assemble) yakhont 800 missile (base of Brahmos) in India for Russia, they export it to other countries, what is our gain?

It will still be produced in India. What is your gain if the factory is not in India.?

Do we create low level jobs? Yes we do!
Do we learn how to assemble most of the parts delivered from Russia, in India? Yes we do!

Better than nothing, isn't it?

Do we gain an equal share of the finacial benefits? No we don't!

Why should you? The money is someone else's, the product is for someone else, why do you expect a share? Taxes are your share, investment is your share, knowledge accretion is your share.

Do we learn how to design, develop, modify or upgrade the missile? No we don't!

Why not? The engineers will learn slowly. In any case, what would you learn if it isn't being built here?

Now the same with Brahmos!

Do we create low level jobs? Yes we do!
Do we learn how to assemble most of the parts delivered from Russia, in India? Yes we do!
Do we gain an equal share of the finacial benefits? Yes we do!
Do we learn how to design, develop, modify or upgrade the missile? Yes we do!

The key difference being it is built for Indians with Indian investment. If you can't understand that difference, then pretty much no one can help you.

If you still don't understand why it's not good for our industry to just produce parts, without actual development in India and for Indian forces behind it, just for the sake of getting production, I can't help you.

If you don't understand that investment is good, no matter how it comes, you certainly can't be helped. According to your thinking, it's better for companies to invest in South Africa & build an industry there rather than do it in India. So no factory is better than a factory, according to you. You really can't be helped.

 

[sancho]

The money is someone else's

That sadly shows your where you stand

The key difference being it is built for Indians

Exactly, so finally you get the important point! If the development is aimed at benefits for India, it's good but that's not happening if we have no say whatsover. Any foreign company will only take advantage of India and low production cost advantages, without taking Indians and our benefits into considerations. That's exactly, why we have to form our policies in that direction to gain advantages too! That's why JVs and joint development build for Indians and with Indian gains in mind, are better than JVs that only gets us low end production. You might be happy with that as long as money can be earned, but I see Indias potential as higher than just to be a low cost industry for others.

 

[Bang Galore]

That sadly shows your where you stand

Ofcourse it does. I'm no fool imagining that $4 million in 12 years is a great achievement of FDI.

Exactly, so finally you get the important point! If the development is aimed at benefits for India, it's good but that's not happening if we have no say whatsover. Any foreign company will only take advantage of India and low production cost advantages, without taking Indians and our benefits into considerations. That's exactly, why we have to form our policies in that direction to gain advantages too! That's why JVs and joint development build for Indians and with Indian gains in mind, are better than JVs that only gets us low end production. You might be happy with that as long as money can be earned, but I see Indias potential as higher than just to be a low cost industry for others.

Let a company build whatever it wants here, what the heck kind of logic are you applying? You can get low production costs in many places, this kind of shortsightedness is why we are in a mess. There's nothing great about showcasing a company that was invested in by GoI & whose products have a guaranteed market in GoI & tomtoming that as being the logic for companies that GoI has no investment in & who have to risk their money without orders from the GoI before they invest.

As far as money being earned, yeah I see no problem Having pipe dreams is no great virtue. Have you got a single company willing to invest in India & give majority control if they are planning to export? Talk about success when that happens in a big way. Otherwise remain content with exaggerated visions of grandeur where everyone will line up in front of your door. We have had idiotic rules in various sectors for years, it's why we now look at China with envy. They had no illusions, they allowed companies to invest & now they can force those very companies to give Chinese companies a share.

We really have nothing in common on this topic, i simply can't even comprehend your logic. Maybe best to leave this here .

 

[Abingdonboy]

Barak 1 missiles => cleared last year, now cleared again but still no ordered

Well, afaik, the orders have been placed for such:

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. will provide the Indian Navy with hundreds of Barak-1 missiles over the next 18 months in a deal worth $143 million. India's Ministry of Defense approved the procurement in recent days

http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-rafael-agrees-indian-missile-deal-1000975034

The licence production deals however, will now face crucial delays if they all are scrapped and re-issued, because it's the whole procedure that have to be done again.

The LUH deal was done!

This is debatable, the deal was stalled at a late stage due to those pesky corruption allegations (remain as much) and anyway it was probably easier to go for a new Make India procurement then try and forge ahead with this deal that has been tainted for years (and remains so) especially in the public's perceptions.

The NDA has not made ideal decisions for the Indian Mil but they haven't made the worst either (further unending decision paralysis). The reissuing whilst unfortunate in the sense of the timescales involved, is at least a good sentiment and a step foreword- at least acknowledge that many deals have been in stasis for years and haven't moved an inch. This also sends out a message to the world's arms industry who had begun to lose faith in the Indian system for exactly this decision paralysis. It really cannot be underplayed how positive this decisiveness from the NDA is and if I was the Indian Mil I would be relieved that I now had an idea of what was going on and a clear path ahead.


I also think it is unreasonable to expect the NDA to progress deals like the LUH that are so tainted and stuck in no man's land to make them too toxic to touch. The NDA actually can't afford to be seen (rightly or wrongly) as "as bad as the old lot"- this would, as I've said before, bring about another era of policy paralysis.

As I've also said- short term pain (2-3 years) for long term gain (the products and that too produced by a private entity).


Decisiveness will save the day have no doubt about that.





Anyway, I'm throughly disappointed that the Indian Mil's wait for new Helos has got longer but that is that, let's look foreword now that is the only way.....

 

[SanjeevaniButi]

You obviously have no idea of what you are talking, so please inform yourself first! It's about selecting a foreign helicopter and produce it under licence in India, be it in the initial tender that was started in 2012, or in the new one. As mentioned, the only difference is, which Indian company will produce them in India, which now depends on the JV of the winning helicopter.
So scrapping tenders that actually could be done now and re-issuing these them only to provide private industry more advantages, while our forces are suffering with old helicopters is not a good thing when the forces expected faster modernisations and not further delays!

It is you who should get educated about the process.

The initial tender was for Foreign helicopters with no requirement to make them in India.

The current tender is for the helicopters to be MADE IN INDIA under Indian ownership.

The whole idea of luring in private industry IS to provide strategic Depth to our Armed forces. It is looking to correct the lack of strategic thinking our Armed forces (except Navy) have demonstrated in its short history.

The Advantages far outweigh the Risk.

The rest of your post is just based on silly party politics, which I am neither a part of nor follow. I am looking at the promises the new government gave our forces to speed up modernisations and at the results and these scrapping of running tenders is logically resulting the opposite. I don't care if it's less delay than UPA or not, as long it is still delay and not fast tracking!!!
Implementing that policy is good, but for new tenders not for tenders that already are running or in some cases just awaited final selection of the MoD. Scrapping them at this stage is a huge mistake which undeniably hurts the operational capability of the forces. So please start looking beyond party politcs and that crap and look at what's important for our forces and the security of the country unless you want to see more of this:

3 officers killed as Army helicopter crashes in UP | The Indian Express

It was you who use to bring in silly party politics when you kept harping about NDA being no different from the UPA.

Now suddenly you want to raise above such comparison. Pathetic.

So far the current govt. has demonstrated considerable speed in implementing policies and decisions that are in the best interest of India.

Considering the lethargic pace of our armed forces in evaluating equipments and taking decisions, they or their fan boys are in no position to comment on the other departmental delays.

Our Operational capabilities are far better served by a clear vision and policy implementation than an ad hoc, knee jerk reaction to equipment shortfalls. That is exactly what has been going wrong for all these years. I am glad the current govt. is addressing this very basic policy and implementation issues.

Clear Policy based decision is the need of the hour, rather than indulge in the knee jerk demands of the Armed forces.

If the security of our Nation is compromised by such measures, then the Armed Forces has CONNED India for a long time and it is time we correct that.

As for your desperate attempt to showcase accidents as a result of old equipments by top class defence personals, here is a picture of a BRAND NEW C-130J crashed by our experts,

Pilot error led to C-130J Hercules crash: IAF sources | The Indian Express

 

[sancho]

This is debatable, the deal was stalled at a late stage due to those pesky corruption allegations (remain as much)...
...and anyway it was probably easier to go for a new Make India procurement then try and forge ahead with this deal

How is that debatable or easier?

You have 2 fully evaluated helicopters and just need to select 1!

Vs

- sending new RFI
- awaiting response
- evaluating the response and sending out RFP
- awaiting response
- evaluating the response and selecting complying helicopters
- vendors need to find Indian industrial partners
- trials needs to be held (for the 3rd time!!!)
- trial results needs to be evaluated
- finalists needs to be shortlisted
- final bids needs to be evaluated
- winner needs to be selected

The NDA has not made ideal decisions for the Indian Mil but they haven't made the worst either

You are still looking at things in comparison to the former MoD / GoI, but elections are done buddy. We have a new government and a new MoD and we have to judge them based on the promises "they" made and the performance "they" actually show. They promissed fast tracking of modernisations, not further delaying and in the first meeting with the 3 chiefs they briefed the PM and the DM about the urgent need of howitzers, LUH and SSKs, now 2 of these 3 are scrapped and delayed, so what does this tell us?

Decisiveness will save the day have no doubt about that.

If indecisiveness was the reason for the delay of LUH in the past and this decision also results in delays too, how does it save the day???
Making a decision, only to say we are decisive doesn't make the decision good and that's the point! If bad decisions are made, that needs to be pointed out and not just buried in excuses (it's bad, but not as bad as the former decisisions).

- following the make in India policy of the former MoD is good
- scrapping running tenders, re-issuing and therefore delaying important modernisations is bad!!!

 

[sancho]

It is you who should get educated about the process.

The initial tender was for Foreign helicopters with no requirement to make them in India.

You don't even know what made in India means! The tender was ALWAYS to be made in India, the difference was, that HAL was suppose to do the licence production of the winning helicopter in India. While the new tender is meant to provide privat industry to do the licence production in India. So no matter what, it was ALWAYS supposed to be "made in India"!

It was you who use to bring in silly party politics when you kept harping about NDA being no different from the UPA.

Not really, I am pointing to the performance of the current MoD and the delays they cause, the only point where I mentioned the former DM, was wrt the made in India policy, since he brought that in and not the new MoD as many confuse. There is simply a difference between reality and perception!

 

[SanjeevaniButi]

You don't even know what made in India means! The tender was ALWAYS to be made in India, the difference was, that HAL was suppose to do the licence production of the winning helicopter in India. While the new tender is meant to provide privat industry to do the licence production in India. So no matter what, it was ALWAYS supposed to be "made in India"!

Wrong again. The earlier contract was for supply of chosen Helicopter with 30% to be reinvested as offset. The new tender is for "make in India". They both are totally different.

In any case the likely winner of the contest was Sikorsky 70B and they already have a tie up with Tata, so it is ridiculous to assume they will offset with HAL.

Not really, I am pointing to the performance of the current MoD and the delays they cause, the only point where I mentioned the former DM, was wrt the made in India policy, since he brought that in and not the new MoD as many confuse. There is simply a difference between reality and perception!

The delay is minimal but the effects of implementing policy based decision is Long term.

The earlier MOD decisions showed a clear disconnect between the policy and decision making. The current govt. is correct that error and closing the gap. IT was something that HAD to be done. There is no two ways about it.