May 30, 2012 : Following criticism of delays, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd has signed a tripartite General Contract with United Aircraft Corporation -Transport Aircraft (UAC-TA), their Russian partner and their JV, Multirole Transport Aircraft Ltd (MTAL) for the Multirole Transport Aircraft (MTA) project. HAL will carry out the design & development of its workshare of MTA at Aircraft R&D (ARDC) Centre at Bangalore while its Transport Aircraft Division (TAD) at Kanpur will manufacture the prototypes. Serial production will take place at Kanpur where dedicated facilities are being set up. HAL's other R&D Centres and manufacturing divisions will share development of systems & LRUs and manufacture of components, sub assemblies and composite structure.

HAL will showcase its expertise in design of aircraft as well as systems, manufacturing & flight testing while jointly working with the Russian team in Moscow as well as in India. The Indian and Russian Governments had earlier signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement for joint design, development & production of MTA on 50:50 sharing basis and had decided to form a JV between HAL, UAC-TA & Rosoboronexport to execute the project. The primary objective is to achieve self-reliance in design & development and production of aircraft of this size and also to manage the programme with international collaboration and a large number of global suppliers.

The aircraft will be designed for the roles of cargo/troop transportation; para-drop /air drop of supplies including Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES). The joint effort seeks to meet a requirement of 100 aircraft for the Russian Air Force, 45 aircraft to the IAF and 60 for export. Total requirement for the present is 205. The MTA project preliminary design will start immediately after signing the follow-up contract on preliminary design on which tripartite discussions have been concluded.