India Launches Privately Funded Aerial Bombs Development Project For Air Force

India will soon indigenously design and develop a 1,000-kg air-launched bomb similar to the Mk-84 for the Air force, to boost arms production under the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has issued an Expression of Interest (EoI) document to Indian companies for the design and development of the 1,000-kg aerial bomb, akin to the Mk-84.

The programme would include the tail units and associated equipment under the Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020 (DAP-2020) provisions, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

The project would be implemented in two phases. The first phase would involve the design and development of six prototypes, both live and inert, including associated tail units and associated equipment.

In the second phase, the MoD would issue a Request for Proposals (RFP), or just tender, for the procurement of the indigenously developed bombs to those companies that qualified in the first phase.

The EoI document insists that the indigenous bomb must be “compatible with both Russian- and Western-origin aircraft” that are currently in the Indian Air Force (IAF) inventory.

The project would be executed through industry funding under the ‘Make-II’ category of DAP-2020, followed by procurement of 600 of the aerial bombs under the Buy (Indian – Indigenously Designed, Developed, and Manufactured) category.

At present, the IAF deploys the Mk-84-class general-purpose bombs, procured from Foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers (FOEMs).

The indigenous aerial bombs would be a “natural fragmentation, high-calibre munition capable of generating high blast effect and significant Peak over-Pressure (PoP) against enemy targets.”

The aerial bombs would be developed in the first phase by the selected companies. The development phase would include a Single-Stage Composite Trials (SSCT), following which the Preliminary Staff Qualitative Requirements (PSQRs) would be converted into the Air Staff Qualitative Requirements (ASQR).

The so-developed aerial bombs should have a minimum of 50% indigenous content. The entire project timeline would be two-and-a-half years (30 months) from EOI to contract signing, including prototype development, user trials, evaluations, commercial negotiation, and contract finalisation.

The IAF would be the lead government agency to enable the project, and the prototype and user trials would be conducted at the Air force facilities and other designated locations in India. It would involve testing the aerial bombs by deploying them from a specified IAF aircraft.

Indian vendors have been invited to respond to the EOI, and they would be allowed foreign collaboration under joint ventures, technology transfer arrangements, and commercially off-the-shelf purchases.

However, the bidding vendor should clearly demonstrate compliance with indigenous design, development, and manufacturing requirements, even when they collaborate with foreign partners.

The responses to the EOI would be evaluated on financial and technical criteria under the DAP-2020 provisions. The technical evaluation would assess engineering capability, infrastructure, integration capacity, indigenous content levels, and compliance with PSQRs.