Private firms to help make Kamov copters

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 16

As India and Russia firm up their alliance to produce Kamov military helicopters, it has been decided that the public sector giant, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), will not be the only Indian partner in the project.

The Ministry of Defence is looking to have private sector Indian investors to share a part of the contract that India has to execute under a joint venture with Russia. The Indian side will hold 50.50 per cent stake in the joint venture of which the private sector companies will be strategic partners with HAL. The private partners could be doing various tasks of making the copter India at HAL’s Bangalore facility. The HAL will remain the lead integrator of the copter, sources said.

Kamov-HAL will produce 200 of the Kamov 226-T copters at a cost of nearly Rs 6,500 crore or Rs 32 crore per copter in India. It will be an inter-governmental deal like the ones earlier for the Russian Sukhoi-30-MKI fighter jets in India or the T-90 tanks. The HAL is owned by the Ministry of Defence and has previous experience at making copters.

The Indian forces need some 800 light utility helicopters over the next decade, a demand which cannot be fulfilled by the HAL alone. The Indo-Russia joint venture aims to have an annual production capacity of 40-60 helicopters.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had last year announced a two-pronged plan to ramp up copter production in India. The first part was to ramp up capacity at HAL and, the second, to invite foreign participation to collaborate with Indian companies.

The first part of expansion of HAL kicked off on January 3 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the stone for HAL’s new helicopter manufacturing facility at Tumkuru, 100 km from Bengaluru.

Under the India-Russia agreement, the engine of the Kamov will involve a separate partnership. The Kamov uses French engine-maker Turbomeca’s power plant. The HAL already has a partnership with the same French company to produce engines for its indigenously developed copter, the advanced light helicopter, called Dhruv. The Kamov 226-T is also fitted with Turbomeca engines, but a different variant.

HAL in the past has licensed-produced the French origin Cheetah/Chetak light utility helicopter. The twin-engine Kamov 226-T will replace the single-engine Cheetah/Chetak.