New Delhi: The Indo-Russian joint project for designing and developing a military multi-role transport aircraft (MTA) will formally begin in January next year, the government said.
A shareholders agreement was signed on September 9
between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Russian companies UAC and Rosoboronexport, Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju told the Rajya Sabha.
"It is planned to start the project in January 2011,
after incorporation of the joint venture programme," he said
in a written reply.
The agreement, he said, was for incorporation of the
joint venture company for design, development and production of the MTA and it was in pursuance of the Inter-Governmental Agreement between the two countries, which was signed on November 12, 2007.
"The joint venture company will have a shareholding of
50 per cent each from both sides. The investment for the
programme has been worked out to be USD 600.7 million at 2006
price level, which will be shared equally by the two sides,"
he said.
India and Russia had announced last month that under
the MTA programme, the former would get about 45 aircraft,
after Defence Minister A K Antony held the Inter-Governmental
Commission meeting with his Russian counterpart Anatoly
Serdyukov here.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, November 11, 2010, 00:26