Press Trust of India,
As part of its move to thicken radar coverage over the Southern Indian peninsula, Indian Air Force will acquire advanced coastal and maritime surveillance and air traffic control radars from Italy.
Under the Rs 293.72 crore (Euro 52 million) deal between the European radar major Finmeccania SPA and Bharat electronics limited, IAF will get 13 ATCR33S primary radars and another 13 SirS secondary radars with giant air control consoles, according to official sources here.
Under bold new strategy, similar radars were purchased by the Airport Authority of India earlier this year for the new Bangalore and Hyderabad greenfield airports and these would be networked with the Radars being inducted by the IAF.
''Such networked system would give us capability to look almost 300 to 500 nautical miles away into the high seas to pick up any threat to the coastline,'' IAF officials said.
The new radars, sources said, will also augment the IAF's move to place some of the Israeli acquired Aerostat mobile radars in the Southern coastal region to protect its high value assets like the Tamil Nadu-based fast-breeder nuclear reactors.
The new radar systems will be delivered within three years and the deal gives India an option to co-produce some of these advanced radars under technology transfer.
The AAI intends to install similar radar systems in nine other cities, almost all in the southern region.
Officials associated with the systems said the new radar was designed for system integration across the military and civil air traffic management spectrum.
Acquisition of new radars comes against the backdrop of enhanced threat perception emanating to the country's security from its vast southern coastline and sea-borne intrusions.
The armed forces are planning a series of joint exercises next year in the southern peninsula to test security reactions in case of threats from the seas.
Frontline fighter aircraft of IAF, along with warships from Navy and coastguard, and army formations dedicated to sea borne assaults would be engaged in these exercises designed to ensure safety of vital sea lanes.
The war games have also been planned to deal with threats of intrusions from air and sea lanes by terrorist groups and to deal with sea hijackings, the sources said.
Though the armed forces had earlier repeatedly sought to play down possible threats from LTTE for their acquisition of air assets, the series of joint military exercises are planned to cope with such attacks, the sources said.
The holding of such exercises comes close on the heels of Indian Air Force along with Coast Guard and Navy having undertaken the first combat war games to test preparations to meet with possible such threats.
