The Sukhoi Su-30 MKI backbone of the Indian Air Force will go under an upgrade by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics. It will be supported by the DRDO and other indigenous private companies to boost the aircraft’s capabilities. The process has taken place after the official approval of the Defence Acquisition Council, under Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh, permitting the Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) indigenous upgrade by HAL.
This will be the latest enhancement of the Sukhoi Su-30 MKI in the last decade since IAF has been operating it.
The upgrade process will be carried out in two phases, The first will be installing the new indigenously made avionics and radar system in 90 Sukhoi fighter aircraft. Followed by the second phase of enhancing the flight control systems. These will prepare the aircraft for modern Electronic Warfare and Infrared search and track systems.
The indigenous integration process will further enhance the air-to-air and air-to-ground targeting and destroying capabilities of the Sukhoi Su-30 MKI.
The overall project is standing at ₹60,000 crore ($7.5B) and was confirmed by Chairman and Managing Director CB Ananthakrishnan. He further stated, “The upgrade will see significant private sector participation, with HAL as the lead integrator,”.
It will be a big boost to the Indian private sector as the project will require expertise and components from various indigenous companies which will make up to 50 per cent of indigenous content.
The project also hints towards future upgradation for the Rudram-1 Next Generation Anti-Radiation Missiles (NGARM) which was successfully tested in 2020.
It is a major encouragement to the “Made in India” initiative and uplifts the ‘self-reliance’ aim of indigenous defence manufacturing.
Currently, there are around 600 Su-27/30 manufactured in the world of which India has 272 Sukhoi Su-30 MKI and 12 more were ordered last year.
As the Sukhoi Su-30 MKI is a joint venture between India and Russia the upgradation process will replace the Russian-origin components with Indigenous ones. Thus the same could be processed by other nations for their Sukhoi aircraft upgradation.
It will help the Indian defence industry to export indigenous hardware to friendly countries operating Sukhoi such as Algeria, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. These countries have already expressed their interest in the Indian defence sector.
Nitish Chavan
