The government on Friday signed a contract to acquire 56 Airbus C295 aircraft to replace the Indian Air Force (IAF) legacy AVRO fleet.
As part of the Rs 22,000 crore deal, Airbus will deliver the first 16 aircraft in ‘fly-away’ condition from its final assembly line in Seville, Spain within 24 months of signing the contract and the subsequent 40 aircraft will be manufactured as assembled by a consortium of the Airbus Defence and Space and Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) locally within 10 years of signing the contract.
This deal is part of a series of initiatives to promote private sector involvement in defence manufacturing and break the monopoly of state owned entities in defence manufacturing.
“The clearance of the joint project between Airbus Defence and Tata Advanced Systems to build the C-295 is a great step forward in the opening up of aviation and avionics projects in India,” Tata Trusts Chairman Ratan Tata said in a statement.
According to an Economic Times report, location of the manufacturing plant is being finalised now. While locations around Hyderabad and Bengaluru are under consideration, other places under consideration could include Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh.
Worth mentioning here is that the Rs 22,000-crore deal has been in the works since 2012, with a push being given in the last year to see it through, after several delays. It was a difficult task for the government and both the private sector entities, given this is the first case in which the public sector was explicitly left out to promote an alternate aerospace complex with the private sector.
The deal to acquire 56 aircraft to replace the aging Avro fleet also includes technology transfer to Tata Advanced Systems.
The C-295 is a multirole aircraft with several reconfigurations to meet mission requirements, Tata added. “It envisages total manufacturing of the aircraft in India. It will create a domestic supply chain capability to international standards, which has never been undertaken before.”
The defence ministry also said that before the completion of the deliveries, a servicing facility for the C-295MW aircraft is scheduled to be set up in India.
