Paris, July 12, 2005, AK Dhar (PTI)

French defence major, Thales has offered an across the board technology transfer to India in state-of-art radar knowhow to help New Delhi move speedily towards bridging the gaps in its air space coverage, specially in detecting low flying intrusions.

Undettered by the recent US efforts at political level to muscle into the lucrative Indian market, Thales with an almost 50 year presence in India has set up an Indian subsidiary and is also offering to set up joint ventures in the country.

Jean Paul Perrier, Chief Executive of the 13 billion Euro multi-European company, Thales said his company was now offering to India its latest three dimension Herakles multi- function radars for the Indian Navy's latest range of lethal indigenous P15 and P17 type frigates.

"The radars have the capability to detect incoming missiles, aircraft, helicopters as well as low-flying Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV'S) as well as guide missiles and other weapons to deal with these threats," Perrier told visiting Indian newsmen as the company unveiled the latest range of radars at Lnemore facility in the city suburbs.

The Herakles MFR-30 can perform in any weather conditions and have back scanning capability enabling it to release missiles to intercept incoming missiles threats, a capability which Indian armed forces lack so far.

Though US efforts at political level have caused some ripples in the French Defence industry, which is India's third largest arms trading partner, Perrier told PTI that Thales was not unduly worried over the American onslaught.

"French companies will not shy away from competition. All we want is a level playing field to let our weapons platform and systems speak for themseleves," he said.

Apparently brave words from a Chief Executive whose company recently had to face the unheard of re-tendering in the project to supply low-level transportable radars (LLTR) to India on full technology transfer, that too after completing price negotiations and the approval of the deal by the Indian Defence Ministry under the erstwhile NDA regime.

An unperturbed Perrier told reporters that his company was ready to bid again for the project as the French were offering the most sophisticated systems. He said the Thales offer included giving rights to Bharat Electronics to sell the radars in third countries.

"We were pitted against the Israelis, who could not match our systems and we are confident that we can outmatch any new bidders" Perrier aid.

India was to procure 19 LLTR's under the deal with the rest to be manufactured by BEL under full technology transfer. Though there is no no official word from the Defence Ministry, high-level defence officials said the Israeli bid was rejected as it did not not meet Indian qualitative standards.