The Indian Ministry of Defence has cleared a proposal worth over Rs 12,000 crore for the procurement of 56 transport aircraft for the Indian Air Force. The new aircraft would replace its fleet of vintage Avro HS748 planes acquired in the sixties from the UK. Procurement of the first batch of 16 aircraft through a global tender would be off-the-shelf from foreign vendor who would need to partner with a local private or public sector firm for the manufacture in India of the rest and more. The next batch of 16 would have a 30 per cent indigenous content, while the component of locally-procured and produced items in the remaining 24 planes would be 60 per cent. The government-owned aerospace major Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is not to be involved in the project as it is already burdened with the production of the SU-30MKI upgrades of the Mirage, MiG 29 and Jaguar aircraft.
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