Tata-Airbus: Having wrested the initiative from Maharashtra and moving the Tata-Airbus manufacturing facility to Vadodara may prove an election coup of sorts for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his home state. With election fever gathering pace in Gujarat, the Prime Minister will lay the foundation stone on October 30 to formalise the manufacturing facility being set up by the Tata-Airbus consortium at Vadodara in Gujarat. The C-295 medium transport aircraft will provide a shot in the arm for the Indian Air Force’s transport fleet, top defence ministry officials commented on Thursday.
Significant move
The development holds a lot of significance since it is for the first time that a military aircraft will be manufactured in India by a private consortium. The decision has borne fruit more than a year after the defence ministry signed a ₹21,935-crore contract with Airbus Defence and Space for 56 C-295 planes. The joint venture will give a much needed fillip to the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (self-reliant India campaign). According to inside sources, Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) and Airbus Defence and Space will jointly execute the programme. The C-295s will replace the IAF’s fleet of ageing Avro-748 planes that entered service in the early 1960s. This was confirmed by defence ministry sources.
The 16 ready-to-fly aircraft are expected to be delivered between September 2023 and August 2025, while the first Made in India aircraft will roll out in September 2026 and the remaining 39 by August 2031, according to the Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar.
Delivery by Airbus
Meanwhile, the Defence secretary said “16 C-295 aircraft will be delivered by Airbus in flyaway condition from Spain, and the remaining 40 will be manufactured in India by Tata consortium of TASL and Tata Consultancy Services.”
This in effect means a production rate of eight aircraft per year at the Vadodara facility. It may also be mentioned that Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka were the other states competing for the project.
Further, according to Kumar, “the indigenous content in the planes will be the highest ever in India, and 96% of the work that Airbus does in Spain will now be done at the new facility.”
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