NEW DELHI (Agencies) - The Indian government has quietly gone ahead and signed the biggest-ever $2.1 billion defence deal with the US for purchase of eight Boeing P-8I long-range maritime reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft for Navy, reports The Times of India. The actual signing of the defence contract took place on January 1, with Defence Ministry's Joint Secretary and Acquisitions Manager (Maritime Systems) Preeti Sudan and Boeing integrated defence systems vice-president and country head Vivek Lall inking the contract, sources said. But, strangely enough, the Defence Ministry is keeping the deal under wraps. Incidentally, the previous NDA regime had also signed a flurry of mega defence deals - like the $1.5 billion one for Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and $1.1 billion one for three Israeli 'Phalcon' AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) - in the run-up to the April-May 2004 general elections. Sources said the P-8I contract was "a direct commercial agreement with Boeing", with "some issues of end-use verification yet to be fully sorted out" with the US government. As reported earlier, India and US are negotiating the End-Use Verification Agreement (EUVA) and the Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), which are required under American laws to ensure compliance with sensitive technology control requirements. The two pacts are required since India is now increasingly turning to US to buy military hardware and software. Though India does not have problems with safeguards, it does not want them to be "intrusive". In terms of the contract size, the P-8I deal supplants the $962m deal signed with US in 2007 for six C-130J 'Super Hercules' aircraft for Indian special forces. India will get the first P-8I towards end-2012 or early-2013, with the other seven following in a phased manner by 2015-2016. The contract also provides an option for India to order four to eight more such planes. Customised for India and based on the Boeing 737 commercial airliner, the P-8I will actually be a variant of the P-8A Poseidon multi-mission maritime aircraft currently being developed for US Navy, which has ordered 108 of them to replace its P-3C Orion fleet. India, of course, remains unhappy over the US decision to sell more P-3C Orions, armed with Harpoon missiles, to Pakistan. For innermost layer surveillance, up to 200 nautical miles, Navy is going in for two more Israeli Heron UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), with three ground control stations and two ship control stations, for Rs386 crore after successfully deploying eight Searcher-II and four Heron UAVs. There is also the Rs1,163 crore joint Indo-Israeli project for developing rotary-wing UAVs for use from warships. In another report, The Times of India said with the civil nuclear deal virtually in the bag now, the US is fast emerging as a potent challenger to Russia, Israel and France in supplying military hardware and software to India, one of the world's largest arms importer. While there may be no direct quid pro quo between the Bush Administration's role in changing the global nuclear architecture for India and defence deals, New Delhi's geopolitical considerations will certainly be an important factor in determining its arms purchases. Even as Indian Defence Minister A K Antony is currently in Washington to impart greater momentum to the already expansive Indo-US military ties, the Pentagon has notified the US Congress of a "possible" sale of Harpoon anti-ship missiles for $170 million (Rs765 crore) to India. The American Defence Security Cooperation Agency told the US Congress that India intends to use the 20 AGM-84L and four ATM-84L Harpoon Block-II missiles to "modernise its Air Force's anti-surface warfare capabilities" and "improve its naval operational flexibility". Considering that the Harpoon-II all-weather missiles are capable of even striking land-based targets and ships in littoral waters, they will certainly give, for instance, Indian Jaguar fighters more deadly maritime strike capabilities. But US, unlike Russia and Israel, sells to both sides of the border. Pakistan already has Harpoon missiles, which in fact forced India to go in for the Israeli Barak-I anti-ship missile defence systems during the 1999 Kargil conflict. Since the Kargil conflict, India has spent a whopping $25 billion in defence imports, with Russia, Israel, France and UK cornering most of the contracts. Russia, of course, leads the pack with annual arms sales to India worth around $1.5 billion, followed by Israel with $1 billion. Now, with India poised to spend another $30 billion over the coming five-six years, the US is obviously keen to grab some of the lucrative contracts. "Well, we have very intensive ties with the US across the entire military spectrum now. And armament purchases are a prominent factor in the relationship," said a top defence official. US has already bagged the $962 million contract to supply six C-130J 'Super Hercules' aircraft for use by Indian special forces, after supplying amphibious warship USS Trenton (INS Jalaswa) to the Navy last year for $49 million. But what the US is really salivating about is IAF's gigantic Rs42,000-crore project to procure 126 multi-role combat fighters, with the Bush Administration aggressively hawking F/A-18 "Super Hornets" (Boeing) and F-16 "Falcons" (Lockheed Martin). US is also very interested in India's recently-launched hunt for 197 "light utility and observation" helicopters for around Rs3,000 crore. Three of the six companies in the fray are American -Bell, Sikorsky and MD Helicopters. But here, too, they will have to contend with Kamov (Russia), Eurocopter (France, Germany and Spain) and Agusta Westland (Italy). Interestingly, in December last year, the Indian government had scrapped the almost-finalised deal to procure the 197 helicopters from Eurocopter, with European countries virtually blaming the US for scuttling the process.