Govt approves procurement of 12 HAL manufactured Su-30 MKI fighter jets, Dhruvastra missiles
₹45,000 crore, including ones to acquire 12 Su-30 MKI fighter jets, maufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The ₹11,000 crores project would include the aircraft and related ground systems, defence officials have said. “The aircraft would include more than 60 per cent indigenous content as per the requirement.
These would be the most modern Su-30 MKI aircraft of the Indian Air Force equipped with multiple Indian weapons and sensors", officials said. The proposals also include procuring Dhruvastra air-to-surface missiles, and an upgrade of Dornier aircraft. The approval to the procurement proposals under the framework of the 'Make in India' initiative came amid the lingering border standoff with China in eastern Ladakh.
The go ahead to the Indian Air Force's (IAF) proposal to carry out the avionics upgrade of the Dornier fleet to improve its accuracy and reliability is considered significant as technical snags on a were reported in the aircraft on a number of occasions earlier this year. "The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for nine capital acquisition proposals of approx. ₹45,000 crore," the defence ministry said in a statement.
The AoN refers to the initial approval to any defence acquisition project. The meeting of the DAC that approved the nine proposals was chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. "All these procurements will be made from Indian vendors under Buy (Indian-Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured (IDMM)/Buy (Indian) category which will give substantial boost to the Indian defence Industry towards achieving the goal of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat'," the defence ministry said.
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