After three years of deliberation, India has finally launched a tender to acquire military transport aircraft for its Air Force. New Delhi plans to purchase 60 aircraft. Under the Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) policy, which seeks to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign suppliers, only 12 aircraft are to be delivered fully assembled, while the remaining 48 will be assembled in India, with 40% to 60% local content.
According to Zone Militaire, the procurement process will be unusual because the tender will be open exclusively to Indian companies. These companies will then be responsible for partnering with foreign aircraft manufacturers to establish an assembly line, maintenance and overhaul facilities, and related infrastructure in India.
Read more: India Restarts russian-Origin Su-30MKI Fighter Production, Plans to Build 12 Aircraft in Five Years
Potential bidders reportedly include Indian defense company Mahindra Defence, which is offering the C-390 Millennium from Brazilian manufacturer Embraer; Tata Advanced Systems, which wants to partner with Lockheed Martin on the C-130J, although it is already an Airbus partner for the C-295; and HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited), which is reportedly considering reviving cooperation with russia and dusting off the Il-214 military transport aircraft project.
The latter option is particularly surprising. Indian media have often cited Airbus’ A400M as the third potential candidate, although its payload capacity exceeds the tender’s stated requirement of up to 30 tonnes.
For India, however, it would appear far more practical to select an existing aircraft and localize its production than to return to what is effectively a dead military transport aircraft project in the form of the Il-214.
This is especially notable because India previously ruled out cooperation with russia on another major aviation project, the Su-57 fighter. Despite Moscow offering a high degree of localization, New Delhi is not considering purchasing the aircraft in the near term. Instead, India wants to develop a sixth-generation fighter with France under the FCAS program.
India has not abandoned defense cooperation with russia altogether, but after rejecting the Su-57, reviving another stalled russian aviation project, the Il-214, would be a rather surprising move.
The story of the Il-214 goes back to June 2001, when India’s HAL and russia’s Ilyushin Aviation Complex and Irkut signed a protocol to jointly develop a new military transport aircraft.
Six years later, in 2007, Moscow and New Delhi signed an intergovernmental agreement on the project, then known as the MTA (Medium Transport Aircraft). The plan was to manufacture the aircraft in both India and russia. In 2010, the two sides established a joint venture to develop and produce the aircraft.
The project soon ran into a series of disagreements over the aircraft’s design, engines and other technical issues, while progress remained slow.
India eventually became dissatisfied with the program and HAL withdrew from it in 2016. A year later, russian officials said the two sides had failed to find a mutually beneficial solution.
By that point, the aircraft existed only as a full-scale mock-up. The project subsequently continued as a purely russian development under the Il-276 designation.
Against this background, a reported attempt by HAL to revive the old Il-214 concept would be difficult to explain, particularly when India has several more mature alternatives available.
Earlier, Defense Express reported that NATO support helped save Airbus’ A400M transport aircraft program after the production line faced the possibility of closure in 2028.
Read more: India's Refusal to Buy Su-57 Now Is Painful Blow to russian Aviation, But AMCA Delays Could Reopen the Door for Moscow's "Analognet" Fighter
