MOSCOW, January 13. /TASS/. The Russian-Indian joint project for the creation of a military transport plane has been frozen, CEO of the Ilyushin company Sergey Velmozhkin told reporters on Wednesday.

"It has been frozen as a joint Russian-Indian project," the Ilyushin CEO said, commenting on the development of the plane that is also known as  Il-214 and MTA.

The contract on Il-214 has not been concluded with the Defense Ministry yet. "The preliminary design is practically ready. We’ll offer it, but the decision depends on the customer. Experts confirm that there is a demand indeed for such aircraft. We hope to clarify the issue somehow by the middle of the year," the CEO said.

It was reported in early 2015 that Russia and India planned to agree in the third quarter of the year on the pre-contract documentation on the MTA program. The beginning of the main stage of the aircraft designing was planned for late 2015.