The Union Cabinet has approved procurement of 73 LCA Tejas Mk-1A fighter aircraft and 10 LCA Tejas Mk-1 Trainer aircraft for Indian Air Force.

Try this PYQ from CSP 2018:

Q.What is “Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)”, sometimes seen in the news?

(a) An Israeli radar system

(b) India’s indigenous anti-missile programme

(c) An American anti-missile system

(d) A defence collaboration between Japan and South Korea

LCA Tejas

• The Tejas is an Indian single-engine, fourth-generation, multirole light fighter aircraft.
• It is designed by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) in collaboration with the Aircraft Research and Design Centre (ARDC) of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
• It came from the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) programme, which began in the 1980s to replace India’s ageing MiG-21 fighters.
• The indigenous content of the Tejas was 59.7% by value and 75.5% by a number of lines replaceable units.

Which are the procured variants?

• Light Combat Aircraft Mk-1A variant is an indigenously designed, developed and manufactured state-of-the-art modern 4+ generation fighter aircraft.
• It is the first “Buy (Indian-Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured)” category procurement of combat aircraft.

Significance

• Tejas enable IAF to handle repairs or servicing at their base depot so that the turnaround time would get reduced for mission-critical systems.
• This would enable IAF to sustain the fleet more efficiently and effectively due to the availability of repair infrastructure at respective bases.
• It will give a further push to Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative and boost indigenization of defence production and the defence industry in the country.

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