French planemaker Airbus is to produce C295 transport aircraft in collaboration with India’s Tata group. Indian military aviation so far has been strictly off limits to local private firms.
Airbus will hand over 16 ready-to-fly aircraft by 2025 while 40 more will be jointly produced with the Tata business empire, which produces everything from salt to locomotives and is a household brand in India.
The 56 Airbus tactical airlifters will replace the British-origin Avro transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force, the defence ministry said.
"This is the first project of its kind in which a military aircraft will be manufactured in India by a private company," the ministry said after the Tata facility was launched in Gujarat state’s Vadodara town on 30 October.
C-295 aircraft is a direct product of PM Modi's visionary Make In India policy, a policy that has encouraged my company, Airbus, to reimagine the way we do business in India... On avg, we'll deliver to India over 1 aircraft every week for next 10yrs: Christian Scherer, Airbus CCO pic.twitter.com/F21rtdqjmV
— ANI (@ANI) October 30, 2022
“The first Made-in-India aircraft is expected in September 2026," the ministry added of the nearly three-billion-euro collaboration between the Tatas, Airbus and Spain-based Space SA which was approved by Delhi in 2021.
As things stand, the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics assemble Russian and British-origin planes and manufacture trainer aircraft for India’s 1.3-million-strong military.
It took India more than 35 years to produce its own supersonic fighter jet but the machine is dependent on foreign parts and is still working through teething problems.
Modi’s dream
Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the Tata-Airbus project as a “big step” for his ambition of transforming India into a manufacturing hub for military hardware.
“We are taking a big step in making India a defence manufacturing hub,” Modi said at the project flag-off in Gujarat, his home-state.
“India is making its fighter planes, tanks, and submarines. This Tata-Airbus project will push forward our motto ‘Make-in-India, Make-for-Globe,’” Modi said.
“Now, India will also manufacture transport planes. Soon, big passenger planes will also be built in India. The project will transform the defence aerospace sector of India and create a new ecosystem,” he added.
‘India will become a major manufacturing hub for large aircraft’: PM Modi lays foundation stone for Tata-Airbus C-295 aircraft plant in Vadodarahttps://t.co/Sd3p43h4Hu
— OpIndia.com (@OpIndia_com) October 31, 2022
India, the world’s largest arms buyer after Saudi Arabia, logged military exports worth 989 million euros during the first six months of 2022.
It aims to achieve an annual export target of 4.3 billion euros by 2025, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told an international defence exhibition.
Prime minister Modi says his government brought substantial sums of overseas capital into 60 domestic sectors including three billion euros into the country’s nascent aerospace industry since coming to power in 2014.
He hopes foreign funding of local defence projects will soon touch 25 billion euros and boost his make-in-India drive, spun out in 2020.
Deal brings smile
The military industry gave the thumbs up to the C295 project amid reports Tata and US-based Lockheed Martin were already in talks to manufacture the iconic Sikorsky helicopter for India’s technology-hungry armed forces.
The civilian sector too applauded project Varodara.
TATA-Airbus JV on C-295 is a historic turning point. Breaking PSU monopoly over aircraft making is formidable reform. Shd spark a revolution in leveraging India’s huge sector manufacturing depth for complex military systems.
— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) October 30, 2022
"India is a growing market and there is a huge business potential here,” said Hisashi Takeuchi, managing director of Maruti-Suzuki India Ltd., the country’s largest car maker.
“For most of the companies abroad, this is a good market to enter into and it is a wise decision for any company to come to India," added Takeuchi, who hopes Tata’s European venture will hone up domestic skills.
“This will also catapult India to produce quality systems, which will help India to produce high precision and high-quality manufacturing products,” the Tata group added in a statement.
Commentator Shekhar Gupta said the project ended an era of state monopolies and could now “spark a revolution in leveraging India’s huge manufacturing depth for complex military systems.”
