Defexpo 2022: Announcements On Airbus-Tata Assembly Line In Gujarat, Repeat Order For K9 Vajra Artillery Guns On The Anvil

Vishal Thapar Oct 18, 2022

There is expectation of big ticket announcements ahead of Defexpo 2022, India’s largest defence exhibition, which opens in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s homestate on October 18.

The setting up of India’s first private sector aircraft assembly line at Dholera in Gujarat by an Airbus-Tata consortium to manufacture 40 Airbus C-295 military transport aircraft under a Rs 22,000 Crore deal which was signed in September 2021 tops the list of expected announcements, Industry observers anticipate. Forty of the 56 aircraft ordered for the Indian Air Force are to be made in India in a seminal, defining programme for Indian Industry.

Also, a repeat order for 200 K9 Vajra 155 mm, 52 calibre tracked self-tracked artillery guns for an estimated Rs 10,000 Crore is on the anvil. This howitzwer is manufactured at Hazira in Gujarat by L&T with transfer of technology from Hanwha of South Korea.

The first order for 100 guns was placed in May 2017 for Rs 4,500 Crore. The 100th gun was delivered to the Indian Army in February 2021. This is the biggest Make in India acquisition signed and delivered during the tenure of the Modi Government so far.

The repeat order for the K9 Vajra, besides serving as a booster dose for Industry, is important in addressing the firepower imbalance with China on the disputed Himalayan boundary, where the military standoff in some pockets is continuing for the third year running. The first lot of K9 Vajras have been deployed in Ladakh.

Although Defexpo 2022 opens at Gandhinagar on October 18, the five-day event will be officially inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 19.

Modi will also launch Mission DefSpace and perform the virtual foundation stone laying for the Deesa airport, also located in Gujarat, the Ministry of Defence announced on October 17.

With the Aatmanirbhar (self-reliance) policy the overriding theme for Defexpo, India has for the first time barred the participation of foreign companies as exhibitors at Defexpo. But Indian subsidiaries of foreign companies and their JVs with a registration and presence in India will participate as exhibitors. There will be on foreign country pavillions, as in the past.

The India Pavillion, which will be the marquee display at the show, will be inaugurared by Modi. He will also unveil the indigenous trainer aircraft, HTT-40, the Ministry of Defence announced.

The Minisrtry of Defence stated that 1,340 Indian comopanies will participate as exhibitors on a space of 100,000 square metres. Trade and Government representatives from 75 countries will attend the show. Thirty-three Foreign Ministers will be in attendance at Defexpo.

“451 MoUs will be signed during the event. This will translate into investment of Rs 1,50,000 Crore,“ Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced on October 17 at the curtain raiser for Defexpo.

Singh vowed that India will end the culture of arms imports. “It has been a transformative journey from being the world’s largest arms importer to an exporter. India is now among the world’s top 25 arms exporting countries, he said, while announcing that the quantum of India’s Defence exports in the first six months of the current fiscal was Rs 8,000 Crore.

Referring to the three Positive Indigenisation Lists which puts a bar on imports of over 400 items of military equipment, including top-end platforms, Singh expressed a commitment that “India will not import (this equipment) under any circumstances. This will be made in India by Indians“.