LAHORE: The Punjab government is in the last stage of haggling with Russia for buying the heavy duty MI-17 helicopter at a price less than the one being reportedly offered to Balochistan for the same chopper.

“The deal would be struck in a month and we will get the latest version of MI-17 at the lowest ever price,” an official source told Dawn on Thursday, revealing that other provinces too were after the same chopper.

Sindh was purchasing more than one, Balochistan one and a team of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was in Russia inspecting the chopper, he said.

Purchase is expected to be made at ‘lowest price’

The Punjab government is purchasing the helicopter because its previous one, the same MI-17 had crash-landed and burnt in Afghanistan’s Logar province while flying to Russia for periodical overhaul on Aug 4 last.

The province also had a six-seater Beechcraft Hawker that was grounded in 2015 after it developed a technical fault. And afterwards, the government attempted to buy another airplane, this time a 12-seater jet, for the chief minister. But the plan was shelved and it was decided to purchase a new helicopter.

The grounded six-seater is at present at the manufacturer’s workshop in Germany for a proper checkup and necessary repairs.

The helicopter and the airplane were bought by the government of Pervaiz Elahi in 2004. At present, the Punjab government does not have any aircraft and uses, whenever required, a helicopter of the federal cabinet division that carries a very high rent.

Official sources said Russia was selected for the helicopter through an international bid. Italy was the competitor but its bid was not accepted because its helicopter was luxurious and carried a much higher price of Rs3 billion. It could carry just seven people on board and one such was being used by the prime minister.

They said the MI-17 was a heavy duty multi-purpose machine. That’s why all other provinces too were interested in buying it. It was basically a machine for conducting relief and rescue operations under highly unfavourable circumstances. It could transport 26 persons, and cargo. Russia had quoted $ 17.75 million as its price but the provincial government was trying to have it considerably reduced, said the sources.

“The government is likely to buy the helicopter by March this year,” an official said.

Published in Dawn February 13th, 2017