Article Posted on : - Mar 19, 2011

The C-17 Globemaster III military transport aircraft. A Boeing Photo.

NEW DELHI (PTI): The biggest Indo-US defence deal worth USD 4.1 billion is expected to be cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security by the end of this month.

"The CCS will take up the deal for procuring 10 C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft for discussion in its next meeting in March and is expected to clear it," Defence Ministry sources told PTI here.

The Defence Ministry has already approved funds for procuring the aircraft in this fiscal, they added.

India is planning to procure the aircraft for augmenting its fleet of Ilyushin-76 aircraft and Antonov-32 transport aircraft from the US through the Foreign Military Sales route.

The negotiations between India and the US for the deal were completed in February this year.

After finalising the initial deal for ten aircraft, the IAF is also planning to place orders for additional six aircraft.

On the recent Defence Ministry projects cleared by the CCS, the sources said the proposal to induct at least 16 of the indigenous Akash surface-to-air missile systems into the Army and Project Sanjay related to military communication for the Army were cleared by the highest decision-making body for security-related matters in the government.

The Akash Missile systems are produced by the Bharat Dynamics Limited and have been developed by the DRDO.

The IAF has already placed orders for 64 of these missiles and inducted two of them.