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In December 2010, India had agreed to pay $295 million (Rs1,897
crore) towards the preliminary design of the fighter, which is called the
‘Perspective Multi-role Fighter’ in India. Photo: IAF
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Sukhoi fighter jets can be used to build the
fifth-generation fighter aircraft if the government decides to go ahead with
the proposed Indo-Russian joint venture, said HAL official
New Delhi: The manufacturing facility of the Hindustan
Aeronautics Ltd producing Sukhoi fighter jets can be used to build the
fifth-generation fighter aircraft if the government decides to go ahead with the
proposed Indo-Russian joint venture, T. Suvarna Raju, the chief of the
aerospace behemoth, has said.
Raju said the state-of-the-art facility in Nasik will not
require any major investment to reconfigure it to produce the fifth generation
fighter aircraft (FGFA). He said there was much in common between the FGFA and
the Sukhoi 30MKI jet as both had structural similarities and the plant was well
equipped to produce the new generation stealth fighter for which India and
Russia have been in negotiations for nearly a decade.
“Definitely, it can be used for the FGFA. It will need a
little bit of augmentation. We will not need major investment,” Raju, the
chairman and managing director of HAL, told PTI. The facility at Nasik is set
to fall idle after it delivers the last batch of 35 aircraft out of the total
order of 222 to the Indian Air Force.
In 2007, India and Russia had inked an inter-governmental
pact for the FGFA project but no concrete decision has yet been taken on it.
Pitching for the FGFA project, Raju said it would be an opportunity for India
to acquire high technology which has not been offered to it by any other
country except Russia.
“I will not comment on the justification on expenditure
on the project. But, as a country, if we are looking for fifth generation
technology and if somebody has offered it to us, then definitely I would like
to go for it regardless of the expenditure,” Raju said. There is a view in the
defence establishment that India should not go for the project considering the possible
cost which has been roughly estimated at around $25 billion (around Rs1.61 lakh
crore).
The defence ministry is likely to soon take a call on a
report submitted recently by a high-level committee set up by the government to
examine various aspects of the project. In December 2010, India had agreed to
pay $295 million (Rs1,897 crore) towards the preliminary design of the fighter,
which is called the ‘Perspective Multi-role Fighter’ in India.
However, the negotiations faced various hurdles in the
subsequent years. In February last year, India and Russia revived talks on the
project after a clearance from then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. Raju
said the Nasik plant may be converted to a maintenance facility for the Sukhoi
fleet if the FGFA project does not take off. The delivery of the remaining
Sukhoi jets is likely to be over by early 2020.
First Published: Sun, Nov 26 2017. 01 15 PM IST
Original post: livemint.com
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