New Delhi: A contract for 83 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas was handed over to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) today at the inaugural Ceremony of Aero India 2021, in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. The contract is valued at close to Rs. 48,000 crores.
The deliveries of all 83 aircraft shall be completed in 8 years from now. HAL will be delivering the first 3 aircraft in the 3rd year and 16 aircrafts per year for subsequent 5 years. On February 2, the Defence Minister had inaugurated the second production facility (Plant II) to augment the production capacity and ensure timely supply of aircraft to IAF. The induction of Light Combat Aircraft Tejas Mk-1A in Indian Air Force will enhance operational capabilities and improve the aircraft strength, the Ministry of Defence stated today.
This is the largest ever Defence contract for indigenous manufacture till date and is expected to provide great impetus to indigenous fighter aircraft capability of the nation. About 500 Indian companies including MSMEs in the design and manufacturing sectors will be working with HAL in this procurement.
“Some of these companies have displayed their systems at Aero India 2021. Today, the nation is self-reliant in most of the Military Fighter Aircraft Contemporary technologies and this has been possible largely due to Tejas Programme. The programme would act as a catalyst for transforming the Indian aerospace manufacturing ecosystem into a vibrant Aatmanirbhar-self-sustaining ecosystem,” the Ministry stated.
The Cabinet Committee on Security under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had approved procurement of 73 LCA Tejas Mk-1A fighter aircrafts and 10 LCA Tejas Mk-1 Trainer aircrafts at a cost of Rs. 45,696 Cr along with Design and Development and Infrastructure sanctions worth Rs. 1,202 Crore on January 13, 2021.
A stellar display of Tejas platform was also made today in Aero India 2021 in the presence of large number of international and national participants.
It may be noted that Light Combat Aircraft Mk-1A variant is an indigenously designed, developed and manufactured state of the art modern 4+ generation fighter aircraft. This aircraft is equipped with critical operational capabilities of Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Missile, Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite and Air to Air Refuelling (AAR) would be a potent platform to meet the operational requirements of Indian Air Force. It is the first “Buy (Indian-Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured)” category procurement of combat aircrafts with an indigenous content of 50% which will progressively reach 60% by the end of the programme and about 250 out of 344 systems fitted in the aircraft will be indigenous.
– global bihari bureau
