NEW DELHI, Nov 23: The Indian Navy’s latest Rs10 billion Barak anti-missile defence programme, acquired from Israel, received a setback last week when it failed to hit its decoy target off the Mumbai coast, according to a report in The Sunday Express.

It quoted “highly-placed sources” sources as saying the Barak defence system was tested twice from the navy’s indigenous showpiece— the guided missile destroyer INS Delhi.

The Barak missiles’ test target was a Russian surface-to-surface missile with a deactivated warhead, the paper said.

“However, rather than destroying the Russian target, the missile is said to have taken off and plunged straight into the Arabian Sea. The same thing happened in the second round of tests,” according to the report.

In reply to a detailed questionnaire from The Sunday Express, the navy spokesman said: “We have no comments to offer.”

“But the fact is that Israeli manufacturers Rafael and Israeli Aircraft Industries and navy officials in Mumbai are working overtime to fix the problem,” the report said.

“The navy has contracted for at least eight Barak systems at the cost of over Rs10 billion,” the newspaper said. The proposal for the purchase of Barak was moved by former naval chief Admiral Sushil Kumar and then Western Naval Commander Madhavendra Singh during the Kargil war to boost India’s sole aircraft carrier INS Viraat’s air missile defences.

The only tested Barak system is on the Godavari-class guided missile frigate INS Ganga.

“Another problem area the navy is working on is to integrate the Israeli Barak system with its Russian radars and other systems,” The Sunday Express said, adding that top defence officials called it a “temporary” problem.