Rajnath to pitch 'Brahmos' missile export during Vietnam visit

With an eye on strategic gains and to further the ‘Make in India’ effort, defence minister Rajnath Singh is expected to push for selling the homemade Brahmos missile to Vietnam during his three-day visit beginning Wednesday, writes ETV Bharat's Sanjib Kr Baruah.

New Delhi:After having clinched a Rs 2,770 crore deal in January-end to export at least three ‘Brahmos’ missile batteries for the Philippines Navy, India is looking eagerly ahead to do more ‘Brahmos’ business with Vietnam.

“The ‘Brahmos’ offering is very likely to figure in defence minister Rajnath Singh’s three-day visit to Vietnam from Wednesday,” an official source told ETV Bharat on condition of not being named. “Having expressed interest in the missile in the recent past, Vietnam figures in our list of positive countries where we can strongly pitch the product. Besides the ‘Brahmos’, Vietnam had also evinced keen interest in the ‘Akash’ surface-to-air missile (SAM).”

While India has jointly developed the supersonic ‘Brahmos’ with Russia, ‘Akash’ is almost 90 per cent indigenous. Such a sale to Vietnam - with whom India has a ‘comprehensive strategic’ partnership since 2016 - would buttress India’s strategic outreach policy as well as advance the ‘Make in India – Make for the world’ programme.

Vietnam is vital to India’s “Act East Policy” (AEP) that aims to build closer economic, political, military and strategic ties with countries in Southeast Asia that are grouped under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and also expand into the Southeast Asian market in the process with Indian products for export.

The AEP is a change from the past policy of looking westwards, especially towards Europe and the US. Besides meeting his Vietnamese counterpart General Phan Van Giang, Singh is also to call on Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and PM Pham Minh Chinh. During the visit, which also marks 50 years of establishment of India-Vietnam diplomatic relations, the defence minister will also oversee the handing over of 12 High-Speed Guard Boats constructed under New Delhi’s $US 100 million Defence Line of Credit to Vietnam.

The ‘Brahmos’ - named after Brahmaputra river and the Moskva river in Russia - is a product of a joint venture set up in 1998 between the Indian government’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Russian state-owned NPO Mashinostroyenia. All ‘Brahmos’ missiles are manufactured in India by Brahmos Aerospace, where India owns a 50.5 per cent share while Russia has a 49.5 per cent share.

The entire revenues generated from sale of the ‘Brahmos’ is to be kept aside for research and development (R&D) activity in order to further develop the missile and to keep on technologically upgrading it. While the ‘Brahmos’ has several variants that can be launched from land, sea and air, only the ship-launched version of the supersonic cruise missile is being offered for export.

Reports say a hypersonic version capable of speeds of Mach 7-8 is also being developed besides a ‘top-attack’ or ‘vertical deep-dive’ configuration where the missile is fired at a near-vertical angle, which then climbs up to about 14 km before taking a steep dive and homing into the target. Touted to be among the world's fastest cruise missiles, the main variant that will be used by the Indian Army weighs 3 tons, with a strike range of about 450 km, and is a two-stage precision strike projectile that operates on a fire-and-forget principle. With a top speed of 2.8 mach (3,347 km an hour), the ‘Brahmos’ is capable of carrying a 300 kg warhead.

In another 2-3 years' time, a newer variant - ‘Brahmos NG’ (Next Generation) will be produced at the BrahMos manufacturing centre, a modern and state-of-art facility in the Lucknow node of UP Defence Industrial Corridor (UPDIC). The facility will be spread over 200 acres and will churn out 80-100 ‘Brahmos NG’ missiles every year.

Read: India succesfully test-fires extended range version of BrahMos missile