Procurement of 83 LCA Tejas for Indian Air Force Approved

The Cabinet has given its approval for the procurement of 10 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas Mk-1 Trainer aircraft and 73 LCA Tejas Mk-1A fighter aircraft for the Indian Air Force.

Key Points

• Light Combat Aircraft Mk-1A has been designed, developed, and manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
• The procurement has been approved at the cost of Rs. 45,696 Crore. Additionally, sanctions worth Rs.1,202 Crore will be made for the Design and Development of Infrastructure.
• LCA Mk-1A has operational capabilities of Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite, Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Missile, Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, and Air to Air Refueling (AAR).
• It is the 1st Buy (Indian-Indigenously designed, developed and manufactured) category procurement of combat aircraft.
• The Cabinet has also given its approval for infrastructure development by IAF to help the force to handle servicing and repairs at their base depot.
• Such infrastructure development will reduce the turnaround time for mission-critical systems.

This manufacturing of LCA by HAL will strengthen the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative and give a push to the indigenization of defence production and the defence industry in India. Around 500 Indian companies comprising of MSMEs in the sectors of design and manufacturing will work with HAL in this procurement.

Akash Missile System

Recently, the Cabinet has also approved the export of the Akash missile system and has also constituted a committee to ensure the faster approval of the exports.