Article Posted on : - Feb 25, 2009

Officials said the missile is going to be a variant of Barak missile. In the picture launch of Barak 1. File

NEW DELHI (PTI): Indian is developing a medium-range surface-to-air missile (MR-SAM) in collaboration with Israel for protecting its important cities and installations from enemy aircraft.

"We are jointly developing a 70-km range MR-SAM in partnership with Israeli companies," Senior DRDO scientist Prahlada told reporters on the sidelines of a DRDO function here.

"We may take around 12 years but the requirement of the services is that they want it (MR-SAM) fast. The only way to make it four to five years is to partner with a country which has already developed some of the hardware. If they have have got some hardware and we have got some knowledge, we can do it in 4-5 years," Prahlada said.

He added that the DRDO has already developed air defence systems such as the Trishul and the Akash.

He said the Akash did not fit the bill for the MR-SAM as its range was only 30 km and the services wanted a missile system with a range of 70 km.

He said MR-SAM systems can be deployed for the security of cities such as Delhi and also for securing nuclear installations across the country.