Prime Minister Narendra Modi today laid the foundation stone for the plant to manufacture C-295 aircraft in Vadodara in Gujarat. The joint venture of Airbus and Tata Advanced Systems Limited will manufacture 40 C-295 military transport planes at the facility as part of a Rs 22,000 crore deal to supply 56 such aircraft. The Rest 16 planes will be supplied directly from Spain by Airbus.
Laying the foundation stone for the assembly plant, Narendra Modi said that the aircraft manufacturing facility in Vadodara is India’s giant leap towards becoming self-reliant in the aviation sector. He said that India is going to be a major hub for manicuring large aircraft, both passenger and cargo planes.
‘Today India is making its own fighter planes, tanks, submarines, Indian made medicines and vaccines are saving lakhs of people across the world, Indian made electronics gadgets, made in India mobile phones, Indian made cars are available in so many countries,’ the PM said. He said that India is enhancing its capacities with the mantra of Make in India, Made for the Globe.
‘Now, India will become a major manufacturer of transport planes, and that is being started now. And I can foresee the days when large passenger planes of the world will also be made in India, and the words ‘Made in India’ will be written on them’, the PM said. He added that the Vadodara Tata-Airbus facility has the capacity to transform the defence and aerospace sector in the country.
This is the first time that such a large investment is made in India’s defence aerospace sector. Apart from strengthening the country’s defence forces with the C-295 planes, the plant will also start a new ecosystem for aircraft manufacturing in India. The PM said that while India is already making parts of aircraft, this is the first time that military transport planes will be made in India.
PM Modi informed that above 100 MSMEs will be involved with the Tata-Airbus plant, and in future, it will be able to take orders for export. Talking about future aviation demand in the country, the PM said that India will be among the top three nations in the world in terms of air traffic, and there will be crores of new air passengers in the next 4-5 years.
It is estimated that in the next 10-15 years, India alone will require over 2000 passenger and cargo aircraft, which shows the sector will expand rapidly. India is gearing up to meet this huge demand, and today’s event is also a step in that direction. The PM said that India has brought a golden opportunity for the world, and despite restrictions created due to the Covid-19 pandemic, India’s manufacturing sector is growing.
India has an advantage both on cost-competitiveness and quality, the country is offering low-cost and high-output manufacturing, India has a large talent pool of skilled manpower. The reforms done by the government in the last eight years have created an unprecedented environment in India. The amount of stress that the govt is putting on ease of doing business, it was never done in the past, PM Modi said.
Last year the union cabinet approved the purchase of 56 C-295MW military transport aircraft from Airbus for the Indian Air Force for around ₹22,000 crore, with the condition that 40 of them will be made in India. The first 16 aircraft will be purchased in flyway condition from Spain within 48 months of signing the contract, and the rest 40 will be manufactured in India by a consortium led by Tata Advanced Systems Limited in collaboration with Airbus.
The plant is expected to deliver 8 aircraft per year, and the 40 planes to be made at the Vadodara plant will be delivered from 2026 to 2031. The first batch of 16 planes will be delivered by Airbus from its CASA plant in Spain from 2023 to 2025.
96% of the work on the aircraft that Airbus does in its facility in Spain would be done in the Indian facility. Over 13,400 parts of the C295 would be sourced from 125 Indian suppliers located in seven Indian states. This includes the electronic warfare suite for the aircraft to be made by public sector BEL, which will be fitted in all 56 planes.
The IAF is acquiring the C-295 aircraft to replace its fleet of old Avro HS748 transport planes. IAF currently operates 57 Hawker Siddeley HS 748 aircraft, originally designed by British company Avro and manufactured under licence by HAL in India, which are being retired. HAL had offered to upgrade the HS 748 Avro fleet to modernise it, but the IAF had rejected the proposal as the aircraft lacks crucial features. The lack of a rear ramp door in the Avro aircraft means that it can’t be used to transport military equipment for logistical support, and has largely been used for troop and VVIP movement.
The C-295 will also take the place of An-32 planes, which has seen several accidents in the past. C-295 aircraft is a twin-turboprop transport aircraft of 5-10 Tonne capacity with contemporary technology. The aircraft has a rear ramp door for quick reaction and para dropping of troops and cargo.
India currently operates several different military transport aircraft. Apart from the British plane HS 748 Avro and Ukraine-made AN-32, the IAF operates Soviet-made Ilyushin Il-76, and American large transport planes Boeing C-17 Globemaster and C-130J Super Hercules. C-295 will be the first aircraft from Airbus to be inducted by Indian defence forces in large numbers.
