New Delhi, Apr 26

HAL and BEL signed a contract for co-development and co-production of Long Range Dual Band Infra-Red Search and Track System (IRST) for Su-30 MKI here today under the MAKE-II procedure of Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020, as part of  the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

The proposed IRST system will be a high end strategic technology product in the field of defence avionics and technically competitive to existing IRST system in the global market with features of Television Day Camera, Infrared & LASER sensors in single window for air to air and air to ground target tracking and localization. The system will enhance the Indian Air Force’s air superiority.

Mr Suneel Kumar Srivastava, GM, HAL (Korwa) and Mr. Loyola Pedro Vianney G., GM, BEL (Chennai) signed the contract.  Mr. Arup Chatterjee, Director, Engineering and R&D (HAL) and Mr M V Rajasekhar, Director, R&D (BEL) were present on the occasion.

The joining hands of two defence PSUs for development of technologically critical IRST gives impetus to “Atmanirbhar Bharat” in the defence sector. This initiative also opens the future path in the field of indigenous defence manufacturing for development of high end strategic technology product of IRST for various platforms in global competitive environment.