That is right. However CAG has already ripped apart the government for it.
There are couple of things which are mentioned wrong.
1: HAL manufactures the jets here, not Russia. So there is no issue of price rise by Russians to begin with. As usual our reporters who are fit to write only "celebrity gossip"are quick to jump to bash Russians by taking a calculator and dividing 4.3 billion by 42. What a buncha morons.
2: There is no such thing as a deal which includes maintenance before hand. No one signs such a deal! So this price rise is something else, and not due to maintenance.
3: The vast amount of price rise does not justify the upgrades. It is still too steep a price rise. And as mentioned now, there is a separate deal for upgrading 230 jets for 10,900 crores. So you can imagine the small amount of money which will go to the upgrades for only 42 jets.
4: As mentioned by 'HUD', CAG has nailed this one. The real culprit here is HAL and its incompetency. This article explains it.
How much does a Su-30MKI cost?
The Russian origin Sukhoi-30MKI is Indian Air force's Primary multirole fighter. Many deals were signed with varying costs and other factors. Here is a comprehensive research on how much it costs.
Deal 1(30th Nov 1996): 40 Su-30 jets(8 Su-30K(or MK1), 8 Su-30MK2, 12 Su-30MK3 & 12 Su-30MKI) costs Rs 5,122 crore($1,462 million).
Deal 2(Sep 1998): 10 Su-30K jets costs Rs 1,187 crore($277.01 million). Unit cost $27.7 million.
An additional $270 million was spent for replacing the Su-30K acquired in Deals 1 & 2 with new MKIs, as part of a new deal. Plus a further additional expenditure of Rs 1,188 crore for indigenous development and import of avionics system for the Su-30MKI.
Reference 1
Deal 3(Oct-Dec 2000): 140 Su-30MKI jets to be manufactured by HAL at a total cost of $4,809 million(Rs 22,122.78 crore). $4,809 million includes: Cost for license, ToT(Transfer of Technology), assistance & for setting up the production line in HAL(Hindustan Aeronautics Limited), $350 million or less for components procured from Irkut which wasn't manufactured by HAL, 26 aircraft kits supplied by Irkut & assembled by HAL, and the actual production in HAL. So the average cost of the HAL manufactured fighter is $34.35 million.
But that's not the whole story. Rs 22,122.78 crore for 140 aircraft in 2000 had to be revised to Rs 39,224.09 crore in July 2005. The cost is now estimated to be more than Rs 45,000 crore. For exchange rate of 46 Rupees for every U.S dollar that translates to $4809 million, $8527 million & $9783 million respectively. So price of each HAL manufactured Su-30MKI has increased from $34.35 million in 2000, to $61 million in 2005, to finally $70 million currently, according to CAG's(Comptroller and Auditor General of India) estimation.
Reference 2
Deal 4(2007): A new deal was signed for fast track acquisition of 40 Su-30MKI jets from Russia. Quoting ACM Tyagi "The deal will be signed within this financial year. They will come for a little less than $40 million apiece"
Reference 3
Deal 5: Initially it was reported that 50 Su-30MKI jets are to be acquired from HAL. Unit flyaway cost around $45 million. So the total cost will be around $2250 million. However the deal was revised to only 42 jets. The cost of the deal is reported to be $4.3 billion, which includes some upgrades. It appears CAG's estimation of cost overruns in Deal 3, is finally allocated in this deal.
Reference 4
Reference 5
Reference 6
How much does a Su-30MKI really cost?