Clearing a long-pending deal, the Defence Acquisition Council which met on Friday approved procurement of 12 Su-30MKI jets for the Indian Air Force (IAF). These will be licence-manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and cost under ₹11,000 crore. The IAF has been pushing for additional Sukhois as well 21 MiG-29s.

The DAC cleared Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for nine capital acquisition proposals of the armed forces worth ₹45,000 crore. During the meeting, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh stated that it is time to upgrade ambitions towards indigenisation, a Ministry statement said. “Rather than a threshold of 50% indigenous content for Indian-Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured projects, we should aim for a minimum 60 to 65% indigenous content,” he said.

Mr. Singh directed the Chief of Defence Staff, Service Chiefs, Defence Secretary and Director General (Acquisition) to work towards increasing the minimum indigenous content threshold in consultation with Indian Industry.

For the Army, to enhance protection, mobility, attack capability, and increased survivability of mechanised forces, DAC accorded AoN for procurement of Light Armoured Multipurpose Vehicles and Integrated Surveillance and Targeting System as well High Mobility Vehicle Gun Towing Vehicles for swift mobilisation and deployment of Artillery Guns and Radars.

India had contracted 272 Su-30s from Russia in batches, majority of which were assembled in India by HAL and around 11 jets were lost over the years.