Paving the way for the first fighter jet programme in the private sector, the Ministry of Defence has asked three shortlisted consortiums to submit their formal commercial and technical bids for manufacturing five prototypes of the fifth-generation indigenous Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA).The bids have been invited under the process called the Request for Proposal (RFP), through which the government asks the selected firms to submit technical and commercial proposals for a project.The bids have been invited from Tata Advanced Systems Ltd, which is competing independently; a consortium led by Larsen & Toubro, state-owned Bharat Electronics Ltd and Dynamatic Technologies Ltd; and a consortium of Bharat Forge, BEML and Data Patterns.The winning firm or consortium will work with the Aeronautical Development Agency under the Defence Research and Development Organisation to build five flying prototypes and one structural test aircraft. Once the company is selected, it will be asked to manufacture a plane in 30 months of getting a contract and have it flying in 64 months.This will be the first indigenous production facility outside the PSU, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, which has been the custodian of defence aerospace manufacturing in the country.The bidders will have to respond to the RFP in three months, following which a committee will open the bids for technical and commercial evaluation ahead of identifying the production partner. In February, the MoD had shortlisted three final entities to eventually select the fighter aircraft production partner after evaluating the technical bids submitted by seven initial competitors.The DRDO aims to complete the development cycle of the AMCA by 2034 so that the induction can start from the following year.The DRDO wants two variants with different engines — Mark 1 is expected to be powered by a General Electric F414 98 kilonewton (kN) engine and the advanced Mark 2 may have a 110 kN engine, which is being developed by the HAL and French company Safran.In March last year, the Cabinet Committee on Security had approved the proposal to design and manufacture the AMCA.The Rs 15,000-crore project involves the development of the design and prototype of the aircraft.The aircraft will have the latest avionics and indigenous active electronically scanned array radar and can carry weapons internally and externally.Currently, only the US (F-22 Raptor), Russia (Su-57) and China (J-20) have developed fifth-generation fighter jets.