HAL chairman CB Ananthakrishnan on Tuesday confirmed that India's $7.2 billion project to revamp the country's Su-30MKI combat aircraft would witness the participation of the private sector, with the Bengaluru-headquartered state-owned aviation behemoth playing the role of the "lead integrator".
"The upgrade will see significant private sector participation, with HAL as the lead integrator," Ananthakrishnan noted.
While India's vast contingent of Sukhoi warplanes was made under a license produced by HAL under an agreement signed with Russia's Sukhoi which was later merged with other aviation firms of the Eurasian nation to form the United Aircraft Corporation, the South Asian sovereign state would be upgrading these combat jets indigenously.
As per the details shared by HAL, the overhaul of the Sukhoi-30MKIs would have two phases - the first phase would focus on equipping these potent military aircraft with the latest avionics and the domestically developed Virupaaksha AESA radar.
This would be followed by the integration of a modern flight control system in the cockpits of these combat planes.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is expected to begin work on giving a new avatar to its Sukhoi-30 MKIs later this year with an estimated 90 aircraft slated to be equipped with new systems in the first phase.