HAL to roll out more Tejas fighters from new facility

Bengaluru : State-run aerospace major Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) will roll out more Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas from its new production facility at Nashik in Maharashtra, a top official said on Friday.

"We are setting up a new facility at Nashik to double the production of Tejas fighters to 16 from 8 per year," HAL Chairman and Managing Director R. Madhavan told reporters here.

The company is investing Rs 1,300-crore for the Tejas fighter production augmentation, he said.

The defence behemoth has two production units in Bengaluru where the advanced fourth generation multi-role light fighters are built for the Indian Air Force (IAF) combat fleet.

The new facility is expected to be operational by 2020.

Going forward, the additional capacity will augment the LCA production to 20 units per annum.

The city-based company has an order book of Rs 64,000 crore.

"We certainly like to have a better order book position. Generally, an order book covers 5-7 years of our sales, but what we have covers four years. It is slightly on the lower side, but we have pending orders which should make up," said the Chairman.

An order of 83 LCAs for the IAF is pending, he said.

Fresh orders are expected for the defence major within the next 3-6 months.

"We are looking at orders for 83 LCA Mk-1s and 15 Light Combat Helicopters (LCH)," Madhavan said.

Over the last six months, HAL received an order worth Rs 950 crore for the upgrade of 17 Dornier aircraft from the Indian Coast Guard.