The order for MSSR for four airports was, in fact, cleared by AAI board in October, but then became the centre of a raging controversy which ended only some days ago when the Civil Aviation secretary P.V. Jayakrishnan called a meeting and virtually explained to the board members that the original decision was perfectly in order. The final order is now going to be formally placed with the Bharat Electronics-Westinghouse Combine, and it is expected that the radar will be in place after six to eight months.

The radar is important at Nagpur as this iswhere most air-routes criss-cross and it is essential for the Air Traffic Control (ATC) to know exact details of an aeroplane's flight path. At present, the ATC has to depend on the pilot's word for his position and has no independent way to confirm this. This, of course, was the reason for crashes like as the tragic one at Charkhi Dadri which occurred in November, 1996. More than 350 people perished in the collision between a Khazak and a Saudia plane.

In October, AAI board cleared a decision to buy four MSSRs from BEL-Westinghouse at an approximate price of Rs 70 crore for four airports -- Nagpur, Mangalore, Varanasi and Behrampur near Bhubaneswar. AAI was to try and negotiate the price as it had obtained a `budgetary' quote from a European firm Cossor, a subsidiary of the US avionics firm Raytheon. A `budgetary' quote was got by AAI to figure out what the rough price of the equipment they were buying was, to ensure that BEL-Westinghouse, with whom they had a contract for supplying MSSRs, was notovercharging them.

It was after the order was cleared in October, and BEL signed an international sales agreement with Westinghouse and paid it an advance of $1.8 million, that the fun really began. S.C. Tripathi, an AAI board member and the chief of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security and Secretary (Security) in the government, along with P.K. Brahma, who is a joint secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, said that they would not go along with the deal.

Both argued, briefly, that the Cossor radars were cheaper, of a superior technology -- Cossor MSSRs were said to be of a `solid state' nature while Westinghouse's were not -- and that no tenders had in fact been called for by the AAI before placing the order with BEL-Westinghouse. Tripathi wrote to AAI chief D.V. Gupta saying, ``Is the AAI going to make the country suffer by installing the radars belonging to old technology and generation?''

It was also pointed out, by others, that Westinghouse's radars were being phased out by the FederalAviation Authority in the US and that its latest orders were being placed on Cossor, not Westinghouse.

K. Ramalingam, member, planning, AAI, however, defended the decision. He pointed out that a comparison was done of the two radars and that Westinghouse was found suitable. The AAI, in fact, also sent a letter to the FAA on why they were not buying Westinghouse radars. It transpired that the company had lost the price bid, but not because their radars were unsuitable. The main reason for the price difference, Ramalingam added, was that if AAI had imported Cossor radars, it would have had to pay a 30 per cent duty, whereas BEL had to pay 37 per cent in addition to an excise duty of 17 per cent when it converted Westinghouse's CKD kits. The latest budget, incidentally, has imposed a countervailing duty on AAI's direct imports, making both duties equal.

Briefly, in 1993, the National Airports Authority of India (NAAI) invited global bid for primary and secondary radars, along with a technology transferclause to an Indian firm. This bid was won by Westinghouse, and a three-way agreement was signed between NAAI, BEL and Westinghouse, whereby Westinghouse would transfer technology to BEl for making radars. BEL was to spend Rs 10 crore for this purpose, and this was to be amortised through the airports buying 10 primary and 20 secondary radars from it. While Westinghouse agreed to transfer technology to BEL since it believed the orders it was getting were large, AAI bought only six primary as well as secondary radars from it -- so far, only Rs 1.4 crore of the Rs 10 crore BEL spent have been amortised.

AAI officials then argued that not only was the BEL-Westinghouse radar a good one, if they did not buy it, they would have to pay BEL Rs 8.6 crore, apart from the possibility of a law suit by Westinghouse for breach of contract.