India, Russia To Sign Su-30MKI Spares Pact Soon

India and Russia may soon sign a contract for express delivery of Su-30MKI spares.

The spares agreement will provide an express process for the delivery of spares for the fleet for the next five years. Earlier, each spare part had to be ordered separately involving licensing, custom clearances and bank guarantees. The new contract will ease the process of procuring the spares and will ensure that spare parts manufacturing will start within a month, Economic Times News Daily reported Monday.

"A delegation from the Indian defence ministry is expected in the second half of December and we hope to have a positive decision and sign the contract at the soonest," Valery V Chishchevoy, Marketing Director of Sukhoi was quoted by the news daily as saying.

The new contract is expected to reduce the time of procurement from 12 months to a month.

Chishchevoy said that the main purpose of the new agreement is to increase the reliability and availability of the Su 30 fleet to 60 percent and higher. The availability rate is the number of aircraft in the entire fleet that are available for combat missions at any given time. At present, just over 50 percent of India's Su 30 fleet - 272 of the fighters have been ordered - are available for combat missions as the rest are either undergoing repairs or grounded due to delay in the supply of spare parts.

Defence Minister Parrikar said in the past that his aim is to increase this availability rate to 65 percent and above so that the available resources of the air force are used optimally.

There is a possibility that the availability of the fleet could touch the magical figure of 75 percent. Chishchevoy said that the Russian proposal ten years ago when the fleet was young was to appoint Sukhoi as the single supplier responsible for the serviceability of the fleet and 75 percent would be `guaranteed'.

"Under the new contract, after the receipt of a request from the Indian air force, the spare part wil be delivered to the air force warehouse within 4-12 months, depending on the time it takes to manufacture the part. As of now, 12 months are required for just to start the production, this will reduce to 30 days," Viacheslav Yu Lozan, After Sale Center Director, Sukhoi said.