India has accepted an offer from the United States to buy the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System-II (NASAMS-II) that will help in securing the national capital with cutting edge technology.
According to sources, the NASAMS-II from the US will be used along with Russian and Isreali systems, which will be used to shield the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi, from future threats varying from drones to ballistic missiles, reports TOI.
Sources from the Defence Ministry confirmed that the US will send the final draft of the 'letter of acceptance' under its foreign military sales programme within July to August. The deal is likely to be worth Rs 6,000 crore.
On Saturday (June 8), the Donald Trump administration had approved the sale of armed drones to India but had not mentioned when the sales of the armed drones would take place.
"The United States approved the sale of the armed drones to India. We have offered integrated air and missile defence technology to India," a senior White House official told news agency PTI.
The report also revealed the US has been pushing India to consider buying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) and Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) defence MISSILE system in a bid to deter India to break the defence deal with Russia, in which the country is purchasing five squadrons of the advanced S-400 Triumph surface-to-air missile systems.
Regarding the current status of the Russian deal and whether India will back out in the future, defence sources told The Print that it was "always possible in all contracts" but any such decision would come with "severe consequences".
According to the TOI, the Russian S-400 Triumph missiles will be used as strategic deterrance along India's borders. The S-400 systems can detect, track and destroy hostile strategic bombers, planes, spy planes, missiles and unmanned aircraft at a distance of 380 km.
The NASAMS' innermost layer consists of Sentinel X band 3D radars, short and medium missile launchers, fire control centre and command-and-control units to quickly detect, track and shoot down multiple airborne threats.
The second layer will be protected by the mobile S-400 systems. The outermost layer will be protected by the DRDO-developed two-tier ballistic missile defence (BMD) system which is designed to track and destroy nuclear missiles both inside (endo) and outside (exo) the earth's atmosphere.
After that the Barak-8 medium-range surface-to-air missile systems, jointly developed by the DRDO and Israeli Aerospace Industries will be at work.
It is also a part of the air defence system guarding Washington.
