India's Adani Group and Sweden's Defence major SAAB on Friday announced a joint venture to manufacture Swedish single-engine Gripen fighter jets in India. The IAF is likely to float global tenders for single-engine jets and Adani-SAAB will have to qualify to bag the contract worth over Rs 60,000 crore.
The tender will be floated according to the recently announced Strategic Partnership (SP) of India's Defence Ministry allowing Indian private companies to tie up with foreign original equipment manufacturer(OEM) to build frontline weapon systems including fighter aircraft, warships, submarines and artillery guns here.
Announcing the tie-up here, Chairman Adani Group Gautam Adani said the partnership would in aerospace and Defence sectors will help establish new production lines in India, generate employment and build sustainable skills. President and CEO of SAAB Hakan Bushke said the plan together is to create a defence ecosystem in India. He also said SAAB would do complete technology transfer including the “source codes” to India.
So far, Adani has no presence in aerospace manufacturing sector but the SAAB and Adani officials drew attention to the latter's experience in industrial engineering, system integration and mega project execution capabilities. Incidentally, US defence giant lockheed Martin forged collaboration with Tata to manufacture F-16 here.
The two announcements come in the backdrop of the IAF likely to initiate the process for the selection of a single engine fighter aircraft to replace the Russian Mig-21s and Mig-27s in service. In the next five years 11 squadrons(one squadron has 18-20 planes) of Mig-21 and Mig-27s are to be phased out from service. The procurement would be under the recently promulgated Strategic Partnership model of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP). The deal for 100 plus fighter aircraft is estimated to be worth over
Rs 60,000 crore.
Pitching for their products, the Swedish and US manufacturers have assured their Indian partners with offers of extensive technology transfer, exporting from the assembly line in India and creating thousands of skilled jobs locally. The IAF is in urgent need of new aircraft to augment itself its falling fighter strength. In contrast to a sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons, it presently has 33 squadrons.