India announces defence spending worth nearly $780 m.

NEW DELHI, Wednesday (AFP) India announced an elaborate military spending plan totalling about 779 million dollars for acquiring and upgrading a host of sophisticated hardware equipment.

Unveiling the package, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said a decision had also been taken to start price negotiations with Qatar for the purchase of a dozen used French-made Mirage 2000 jet fighters.

The aircraft have "80-87 percent of life", the minister said. Mukherjee said approvals had been given at a security cabinet meeting to purchase 11 Dornier aircraft at a cost of 7.26 billion rupees or 168 million dollars. The aircraft are used for maritime surveillance.

It was also decided to upgrade the vertical take-off Sea Harrier fighter jets with a new Israeli missile system and fit the planes with digital cockpit video recorders. The entire project would cost 110 million dollars.

Cabinet also approved the construction of nine offshore patrol vehicles for the Indian Navy at a cost of 252 million dollars and the purchase of one complete "C-303 submarine-fired torpedo decoy system" from an Italian firm M/s Wass at a cost of 83 million dollars.

Another decision taken was to revise the cost of production of intermediate jet trainers to 108 million dollars against a 1997 price of 41 million dollars.

Approvals were also given to establish "imagery interpretation" centres at the cost of 91 million dollars and a propellant facility at the cost of 75 million dollars.