India will kick-off the formal acquisition process for the 31 top-notch weaponised MQ-9B drones from the US early next month, with the aim being to ink the actual contract within this fiscal and complete induction of all the remotely-piloted aircraft systems in phases over the next six to seven years.

The “hunter-killer” MQ-9B Reaper or Predator-B drones, designed to fly for around 40 hours at altitudes over 40,000-feet for surveillance missions and armed with Hellfire air-to-ground missiles and smart bombs for precision strikes, are far superior to China’s existing armed drones.China, incidentally, has also been supplying its armed Cai Hong-4 and Wing Loong-II drones to Pakistan.“The actionable LoR (letter of request) for the 31 MQ-9B drones will be sent to the US government in the first week of July.

This comes after the Rajnath Singh-led defence acquisitions council accorded the AoN (acceptance of necessity) for the deal on June 15,” a top defence ministry officer said on Saturday.

The inter-governmental deal for the 31 drones -- 15 Sea Guardians for Navy and eight Sky Guardians each for Army and IAF with their associated mobile ground control systems, weapons and other equipment -- is estimated to be worth around $3.5 billion (almost Rs 29,000 crore).Under the deal, the high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) drones will be assembled in India.

“Drone-manufacturer General Atomics will make some components here by tying up with Indian companies.

The current figure for this is 8-9% but there is scope to increase it to 15-20%,” the officer said.General Atomics will also set up a “cost-effective and comprehensive global MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul) facility” in India, which can cater to other countries like Australia and Japan as well.The US government will respond to India’s LoR with a LoA (letter of acceptance) with the final costing and the requisite notification to the US Congress under its foreign military sales (FMS) programme.“A lot of the technical-commercial discussions have already taken place.

The contract will be inked after the final nod from our CCS (cabinet committee on security),” the officer said.Though it will depend on General Atomics’ production capacity, India hopes to induct the first 10 MQ-9B drones within one to two years of the contract being inked.

The rest will come in batches every six months.With nine `hard points’ to carry missiles and smart bombs, the drones will bolster India’s long-range over-the-horizon ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and strike capabilities both in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) as well as the land frontiers with China and Pakistan.

The plan is to deploy the drones at three tri-Service ISR command and control centres in the northwest, northeast and south India.

The two unarmed Sea Guardians, acquired by the Navy on lease from General Atomics in September 2020, are based at naval air station INS Rajali at Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu.

They have been effectively used for high-end ISR missions both in the IOR as well as the 3,488-km Line of Actual Control with China.

The MQ-9B deal is also expected to help DRDO eventually develop indigenous armed HALE drones capable of firing missiles and precision-guided munitions on enemy targets before returning to their home bases to re-arm for their next mission like manned fighter jets.While lagging far behind China in this critical military arena, the Indian armed forces do have a large number of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), mainly of Israeli-origin, for real-time reconnaissance and precision-targeting.

The IAF also has some Israeli Harop “killer” or Kamikaze drones that act as cruise missiles by exploding into enemy targets and radars.In July last year, DRDO had tested the stealth wing flying testbed (SWiFT), a scaled down version of what is eventually supposed be a remotely-piloted strike aircraft (RPSA).

But it will take several years to become operational.