HAL delivers 16th ALH Mk-III helicopters to Indian Coast Guard, receives letter of intent for 9 more

The Indian Coast Guard had signed a contract with HAL for supply of 16 ALH Mk III in March 2017. The agency has inducted 15 choppers so far.

“We are proud to be associated with HAL and happy to issue a Letter of Intent (LoI) for nine more helicopters. Despite COVID-19, HAL delivered all the helicopters at the shortest time with seamless production activities and this allowed us to strengthen India’s maritime security,” DG Coast Guard V S Pathania said.

The Indian Coast Guard has acquired ALH Mk-III helicopters for diversified roles, which include maritime surveillance, search and rescue, medical evacuation, logistics support to ships and interdiction.  These choppers have been deployed at Porbandar, Bhubaneshwar, Kochi and Chennai.

The indigenous ALH Mk-III chopper (Express Photo)

An ALH Mk-III chopper comes equipped with surveillance radar, electro optic pod, medical intensive care unit, high intensity searchlight, infrared suppressor, heavy machine gun, glass cockpit and is powered by two shakti helicopter engines. The helicopter is indigenously designed, developed and produced by HAL. The company has so far produced more than 330 ALHs.

C B Ananthakrishnan, chairman and managing director, HAL said a unique feature of the contract has been the performance based logistics – a one stop solution for maintenance of these helicopters by HAL. “This will serve as a benchmark for all our future contracts and boost our resolve to work with private partners to speed up the work in the interest of all our customers and strengthen ‘Make-in-India’ activities in the defence ecosystem”, he added.