The Government of India had cleared the project for development of Airborne Early Warning and Control systems (AWACS), which can detect any kind of incoming aerial threats like hostile fighters, drones and cruise missiles from 400-km away. The Defence acquisitions council (DAC), headed by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has approved the building of two AWACS, which will involve mounting indigenous 360-degree coverage Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars on Airbus A-330 wide-body jets.
The government is planning to induct eight such aircraft under the “AWACS-India” project. India’s neighbors i.e. China and Pakistan are very advanced in this critical area in modern-day warfare when compared to India. The cost of AWACS project will be shared between IAF and DRDO (80% and 20% respectively). The Government has sanctioned Rs.5113 crore for this ambitious project.
The DAC also approved the acquisition of
- 30 weapon-locating radars from defence PSU Bharat Electronics.
- 1,512 mine-ploughs for the T-90S main-battle tanks from Bharat Earth Movers Ltd.
