India to offer ALHs to Indonesia, this time with training, maintenance package

New Delhi, March 24: India is offering its indigenously-built Advanced Light Helicopters (ALHs) Dhruv to Indonesia but taking out a leaf from its experience in Latin America it will be clubbing maintenance and training in the package as well.

If Indian defence diplomacy gets through the deal the ALHs will be operating in China’s backyard and it would be nothing sort of a coup with the Indian-built helicopters operating from Chinese background.

A Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official told me, “We will be making our offer for ALHs to Indonesia and this time with training and maintenance package as our experience in Ecuador has taught us.” ALHs, made by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and supplied to Ecuador, had crashed bringing a bad name to the home-built choppers.

India does not have a defence export policy but it does have a secret list of countries that it will not be selling the defence equipment to. Recently, India has been pushing its defence diplomacy to help the countries in the South-East Asian region – namely Indonesia and Vietnam – to develop potent armed forces. So far the defence element of cooperation between these countries have been largely focussed on training armed forces personnel and joint wargames.

India to provide another helicopter to Maldives

Photos courtesy Ministry of Defence

In his first visit to Maldives after the regime change in the island nation earlier this year, Defence Minister AK Antony on Sunday assured India’s help in countering the menace of piracy in the maritime region around the country and also agreed to give another Advanced Light Helicopter to it. 

Antony’s visit to the country has come at a time when the Chinese establishment has welcomed the new government in Maldives, located south of Lakshadweep Islands. A strong foothold for China in the country’s backyard does not augur well for India strategically.

Antony met his Maldivian counterpart and Col (Retd) Mohamed Nazim in Male and the two countries decided to ‘maintain close cooperation in unitedly fighting against challenges of terrorists and non- state actors’. Indian Naval warships and one Dornier aircraft have been conducting regular anti-piracy patrolling for Maldives in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). India also agreed that the tenure of ALH Dhruv given to Maldives in 2010 will be increased for another two years. The helicopter has already been had been upgraded with night flying capabilities during the recent overhaul at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) Bangalore. 

Moreover a team of Qualified Flying Instructors will now be deputed to train Maldivian Air Wing personnel. In addition, India will also provide simulator training to Maldivian helicopter pilots at HAL, Bangalore. “To a request from Maldives for an additional ALH for deployment in the Northern Province for Medical evacuation purposes, the Defence Minister assured him that he would try to fulfill this request at the earliest,” spokesperson Sitanshu Kar said from Male.

Moreover, on a request from the Male’, India has decided to position an Indian Navy Afloat Support Team at Maldives for a period of one year to help in smooth functioning and operations of the latter’s fleet and help in training their personnel for future maintenance operations.

Antony was accompanied by a high-level defence delegation including Defence Secretary Shashikant Sharma, Western Naval Command Chief Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha, Director General Military Training Lt Gen SP Tanwar and DG AFMS Air Marshal DP Joshi.