NEW DELHI, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government on Wednesday approved the purchase of 73 Tejas Light Combat (LCA) Aircraft fighter jets and 10 trainer aircraft, officials said.
The decision was taken during a cabinet meeting chaired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
"The cabinet met under the chairmanship of prime minister in New Delhi on 13 January and has approved procurement of 73 LCA Tejas Mk-1A fighter aircrafts and 10 LCA Tejas Mk-1 Trainer aircrafts at the cost of INR 45,696 Crore (6.24 billion U.S. dollars) along with design and development of infrastructure sanctions worth INR 1202 Crore (164 million U.S. dollars)," read a statement issued by the government.
According to the government, LCA Mk-1A variant is an indigenously designed, developed and manufactured state-of-the-art modern four-plus 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," the official statement said.
"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."
Officials said about 500 Indian companies including micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the design and manufacturing sectors will be working with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in this procurement. Enditem