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India's defence establishment has turned to local maintenance repair and overhaul organisations (MROs) for maintenance and upgrade to their planes.
While the Indian Navy has approached Air India for maintenance of its recently inducted P-8I reconnnaissance planes, the Indian Air Force is seeking participation of MROs to fast track the upgrade of its MIG-29 and AN-32 planes.
"We are in discussions with the Navy. Their officials have visited our facilities in Mumbai and Thiruvanathapuram and we are hoping for a favourable decision,'' said H R Jagannath, executive director of Air India.
The P-8I aircraft is manufactured by Boeing and in the past Air India has serviced IAF's Boeing 737 too.
Similarly the IAF is also seeking bids from private MROs for upgrade of its planes. Till now private sector involvement in IAF or Navy planes has been limited. Max Aerospace, a Mumbai based firm has carried out work on MIG- 21 planes but due to constraints in capacity and lack of adequate manpower the IAF wants too involve private sector in other projects too.
"We will provide total support to private MROs and we will carry out the quality control,'' Air Marshal P Kanakaraj said at an event in Mumbai today. Kanakaraj said the IAF can complete upgrades to ten planes each year and it would take over five years to complete the works on 55 Mig 29s.
"We are seeking help of MROs as we want to complete the work on Mig 29s and AN-32 planes in three years,'' he said.
