New Delhi, July 19 -- The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) is set to approve the acquisition of 87 armed medium altitude long endurance (MALE) drones for the Indian armed forces, and the Cabinet Committee of Security (CCS), the construction of six airborne early warning and control aircraft which will be based on the Airbus 319 platform - both measures aimed at plugging key hardware and force-multiplier gaps noticed during Operation Sindoor, people familiar with the matter said. These will likely be the first armed drones with Indian military - the approved acquisition of the Predator MQ 9B drones from the US will not happen before 2028 - and India has thus far been using Israeli Heron drones for intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance (ISR) missions and not in a hunting role. The total cost of acquisition is around Rs.20,000 crore. HT learns that the acquisition of 87 MALE drones has already been approved by the Defence Procurement Board (DPB) headed by Defence Secretary RK Singh and now the apex DAC chaired by defence minister Rajnath Singh will accord the Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) to the procurement. After AoN, the defence ministry will float a Request for Proposal (RFP) in which armed drone companies such as General Atomics, Israeli Aircraft Industries, European consortium (Eurodrone), Adani-Elbit, Tatas, Kalyani Forge and HAL are expected to participate. Meanwhile, CCS is set to give a green signal to the construction of six airborne early warning and control aircraft on the Airbus 319 platform. India has fewer AEW&C aircraft than Pakistan, and the second-hand aircraft will be hardened by Airbus in France before installation of DRDO Netra IA radars, and mission control systems....