Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 18

The Ministry of Defence has okayed the procurement of 83 Tejas Mark 1A fighter jets at a cost of Rs 38,000 crore.

The Mark 1-A will have 43 improvements over the existing version of the Tejas being presently flown.

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh okayed the procurement of 83 of advanced Mark1A version of the Tejas aircraft from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

With this order, the total Tejas jets – in three variants — would be 123. The first 20 planes have already been supplied and are called the initial operational clearance (IOC) version. The next 20 are termed as the final operational clearance, the first such plane flew yesterday.

In the Mark 1A version, the IAF wants a AESA radar in place of the manually scanned Israeli Elta radar, besides a “self-protection jammer”. The FoC version already had air-to-air missiles and mid-air refuelling. The MoD wants the production to be 20 jets annually.

These will be replacement for the MiG-21 jets, the fleet is expected to phased out totally by 2025.