The Union Cabinet, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday, approved procurement of 83 'Tejas' Jet, 73 LCA Tejas Mk-1A fighter aircraft, and 10 LCA Tejas Mk-1 Trainer aircraft at the cost of rupees 48000 Crore along with Design and Development of Infrastructure sanctions worth Rs1,202 crore.
"The CCS chaired by PM today approved the largest indigenous defence procurement deal worth about 48000 Crores to strengthen IAF's fleet of homegrown fighter jet 'LCA-Tejas'. This deal will be a game changer for self reliance in the Indian defence manufacturing," Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted on Wednesday evening.
"The LCA-Tejas is going to be the backbone of the IAF fighter fleet in years to come. LCA-Tejas incorporates a large number of new technologies many of which were never attempted in India. The indigenous content of LCA-Tejas is 50% in Mk1A variant which will be enhanced to 60%," Rajnath said.
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 (IAF), the Mint reported.
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.
The Cabinet has also approved infrastructure development by IAF under the project to enable them handle repairs or servicing at their base depot so that the turnaround time would get reduced for mission critical systems and would lead to increased availability of aircraft for operational exploitation.
Under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, India is continuously growing in its power to indigenously design, develop and manufacture advanced cutting edge technologies and systems in the Defence Sector, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
The program would act as a catalyst for transforming the Indian aerospace manufacturing ecosystem into a vibrant Atmanirbhar-self-sustaining ecosystem, the ministry added.
