Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence has signed a strategic partnership with Ukraine-based ANTONOV for assembly, manufacture and MRO of Antonov platforms in India for both commercial as well as military aircraft. This a major achievement for India’s strategic plan to give impetus to defence manufacturing in the country.
According to Indian Express, company sources said that the facility is being built at Mihan, Nagpur with an initial investment of Rs 6,500 crore. “The facility is being built over 289 acre of land and we have till date acquired around 104 acre of it, work has already commenced on the acquired land, we will be looking at manufacturing both military and small to medium sized commercial passenger aircrafts,” sources said.
Electronic manufacturing is going to get a major boost from defence manufacturing as the companies would like to source electronic components from local manufacturers or try and have a deal with a component manufacturer who will manufacture components for them.
Defence manufacturing is one of the thrust areas for the government as till now most of the defence equipment and finished products were getting imported and the government now wants to have its own defence manufacturing base in the country.
By Atanu Kumar Das
