India scrapes plans to fully indigenize Sukhoi fighter planes

MOSCOW—In a move to save costs and speed up delivery of Sukhoi fighter aircraft to Indian Air Force from Russia three-years ahead of schedule, the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has scrapped initial plans for full indigenisation of the warplane at its facilities in India.
An agreement signed recently between Russian arms firm Rosoboronexport and Indian Defence Ministry has changed the timeframe of the completion of 3.5 billion dollar contract for the licensed production of 140Su-30MKI fighters by HAL, Russian media reports said today.
The original Sukhoi license production deal signed in December 2000 ,the largest single Indo-Russian defence contract in 40 years, had provision for full indigenisation of the multi-role fighter planes at HAL facilities in India and last of the 140 Su-30MKI was to be delivered in 2017.
The amendments in the initial deal provide for the completion of delivery of 140 fighters in 2014 three years ahead of schedule with India declining to shift the whole production cycle to HAL facilities as the cost of the indigenously-produced fighter would have doubled, 'Kommersant' daily reported.
Russia, which has so far supplied 26 kits to HAL for the assembly of Su-30MKI, would earn an additional USD 350 million through the supply of components by its companies, which otherwise would have been produced by HAL.
Sources in Russian supplier of Su-30MKI fighters Irkut Corporation have said that the deal could be closed even by 2012.—Agencies