Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to officiate at the delivery of a military transport aircraft from Tata-Airbus’ Vadodara assembly line to the Ministry of Defence in the second half of this year, its President International and executive committee member Wouter Van Wersch told reporters at the Singapore Airshow on Wednesday.
The military transport aircraft, C295, is the first “Made in India” project from the Vadodara assembly line, a joint venture between Tata Advanced Systems Limited and Airbus.
Seventy per cent of the components in the making of C295 were sourced from India and 30 per cent imported, including the engine from Connecticut-headquartered Pratt & Whitney.
The Vadodara facility is expected to deliver to the Indian Air Force 40 out of the 56 aircraft to be built under its contract with the Defence Ministry.
Sixteen aircraft have been delivered from the Airbus’ Spanish facility. “That’s a big step. All the others will be coming from the India assembly line,” Van Wersch said.
In future, the Vadodara facility is also expected to supply aircraft to the regional markets, he added.
“We have been growing in India extremely strongly over the last years, and we have made India one of our key centres in terms of engineering and in terms of digital,” Van Wersch said, adding that Airbus’ Bengaluru operation is being relocated to a bigger campus.
He also highlighted its strong and growing relationship with India and Indian talent, adding that a lot of training is being done in the country, including in its Delhi office.
