Article Posted on : - Feb 24, 2011

NEW DELHI (PTI): Government said there has been a ten-fold increase in the cost of the indigenous Kaveri fighter aircraft engine programme which has been delayed by 15 years and blamed sanctions imposed by the US and lack of skilled manpower and infrastructure for it.

The fighter engine programme was sanctioned by the government in 1989 and was to be completed by December 1996 at a cost of Rs 382 crore.

"The project cost was revised to Rs 2,839 crore and the major reasons for time and cost overruns include sanctions imposed by the US, lack of skilled manpower and infrastructure, ab-initio development of engine," Defence Minister A K Antony informed Rajya Sabha Wednesday.

On the present status of the programme, he said so far nine prototypes of Kaveri engines have been developed and about 1975 hours of testing has been conducted on them at ground and altitude conditions.

"Kaveri engine prototype has been integrated with IL-76 Aircraft at Gromov Flight Research Institute in Russia.

The maiden flight test of Kaveri engine with IL-76 Aircraft for over one hour was successfully completed on November 3 followed by three more flight tests," he added.

The defence Minister said it is proposed to develop production version Kaveri (K10) engine on co-design and co- development basis with French company Snecma.

Answering another query, the Defence Minister said the three Services were reviewing their cyber security measures to meet the threats posed by hostile organisations and nations from time to time.

"The existing counter intelligence set up in the armed forces is also synergised on a regular basis to meet the new challenges," Antony added.