Asia's Biggest Aero ends, biggest Make in India Defence Deal closed

After a successful air show, India is all set to go with its biggest defence deal.

The government on Wednesday officially closed the Rs. 48,000-crore deal - the largest contract in Make In India for defence - with airline giant Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) at the Aero India Exhibition in Bangalore. The 83 LCA Tejas aircraft contract was signed in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh who opened the 13th edition of Asia's largest aeronautics and defence exhibition earlier this day. 

"It's probably the biggest defence contract so far," Singh said at the three-day show, which was the first of its kind in the Covid era. It will focus on demonstrating and expanding skills in the Indian defence sector in the Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India sector.

"Tejas is not only indigenous but also better than its external standards in several parameters and relatively cheap. Many countries have shown interest in Tejas," said Mr Singh a day before opening a new HAL facility to double the LCA Tejas product, which is also on display. He added that India could not always rely on other countries for its defence.

Explaining India's plans to spend "$ 130 billion on military revitalization over the next seven to eight years", Mr Singh said the sector was also open to foreign participation. "The Indian government has increased its foreign direct investment in defence by 74 per cent on the automatic route and 100 per cent on the state route," he added. He also spoke about the steps taken by the institute to promote "domestic production of large security platforms".

During the event, the Minister of Defence will also release the DRDO export document of a new process for the construction, development and production of aircraft and aviation stores and other documents with the aim of forcing foreign defence companies to not only manufacture their products in India, but also consider its contributions.