New Delhi: Finally, the contract for the procurement of 83 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Tejas worth Rs 48,000 crore has been handed over to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on Wednesday by the government. The order was given to HAL in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at the inaugural ceremony of Aero India 2021. Earlier, 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 & development and infrastructure sanctions worth Rs 1,202 cr on January 13. The contract is valued at close to Rs. 48,000 crores.
This is the largest ever defence contract for indigenous manufacture till date. This significant step provides great impetus to indigenous fighter aircraft capability of the nation. A stellar display of Tejas platform was made today in Aero India 2021 in the presence of large number of international and national participants.
The deliveries of all 83 aircraft shall be completed in eight years from now. HAL will be delivering the first three aircraft in the 3rd year and 16 aircrafts per year for subsequent five years. On February 2, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the second production facility (Plant-II) to augment the production capacity and ensure timely supply of aircraft to Indian Air Force (IAF). The induction of Light Combat Aircraft Tejas Mk-1A in Indian Air Force will enhance operational capabilities and improve the aircraft strength.
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 percent which will progressively reach 60 percent by the end of the programme and about 250 out of 344 systems fitted in the aircraft will be indigenous.
Responding to Prime Minister's clarion call for Aatmanirbhar 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 manufacturing of LCA by HAL will give a further push to Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiative and boost indigenisation of defence production and the defence industry in the country. 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.
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