Article Posted on : - Oct 07, 2012

NAGPUR (PTI): The Maintenance Command of the Indian Air Force (IAF) wants to drastically bring down dependency on imported components for upkeep of aircraft and aims to become virtually self-sufficient.

"The Command wants to reverse the present ratio of 70 per cent imported and 30 per cent indigenous spare in near future and the process to achieve this has already begun," Maintenance Command Air Officer Commanding in Chief, Air Marshal Jagdish Chandra, said here on Saturday.

He was addressing a press conference ahead of the 80th anniversary of the IAF on October 8.

The endeavour of the Command, headquartered in Nagpur, is to surpass the previous decade's achievements and attain new landmarks in both maintenance and logistic support system, Chandra said.

New acquisitions, including training aircraft, are on the anvil. The IAF was in the process of acquiring new 126 aircraft, the Air Marshal said.

Chandra said aerospace safety and maintainability issues are the top-most priority for the Command and concrete efforts have been made to identify and arrest potential cyber security threats.