India Buy 83 Tejas Light Combat Aircraft For ₹ 45,696 Crore

 

government said 73 Tejas LCA fighter aircraft would become "a potent platform to meet the operational requirement of the India Air Force"

                                                  (rana)

Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), led by Prime Minister Modi, on Wednesday approved the purchase of 73 Tejas (Light Combat Aircraft) fighter jets and 10 trainer aircraft for a cost of around ₹ 45,700 crore.

The Tejas Mk-1A LCA is an indigenously designe and manufactured fourth-generation fighter with critical operational capabilities that include an Active Electronically-Scanned Array radar, an Electronic Warfare (EW) suite, and is capable of air-to-air refueling .

"The LCA Tejas is going to be the backbone of the IAF fighter fleet in (the) years to come. LCA-Tejas incorporates a huge number of new technologies, many of which were never attempted in India," Defense Minister Ranjith Singh tweet, adding that the deal was "game-changer for self-reliance in the Indian defense manufacturing 

Mr. Singh said the deal would also "considerably expand the current LCA ecosystem and help in creating new job opportunities", as well as changing the Indian aerospace manufacturing sector.

The LCA-Tejas programmed would act as a catalyst for transforming the Indian aerospace manufacturing ecosystem into a vibrant Atmanirbhar-self-sustaining ecosystem,he write

In the statement issued Wednesday evening the government said the 73 Tejas LCA fighter aircraft would become. A potent platform to meet the operational requirements of the (IAF).

"It is the first 'BUY (Indian-Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured)' category procurement of combat aircraft (with an indigenous content of 50 per cent that will reach 60 per cent by the end of the programmed)," the government said.

today's meeting the cabinet also approved infrastructure development to enable repair AND servicing of the aircraft at duty stations. This will reduce turnaround time for mission-critical systems and lead to increased availability of aircraft for operations, the government statement.

In May last year the Air Force operationalized its  assigning them to its No,18 Squadron the 'Flying Bullets' - based at Sulur near Coimbatore in Tamil Naduo. The squadron was equipped with the fourth-generation Tejas Mk-1A LCA aircraft.

The first squadron to get the home-made jets was the No 45 based in Coimbatore.