Article Posted on : - Feb 04, 2021

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh hands over a model of Tejas aircraft to HAL Chairman R Madhavan (L) during the inauguration of the 13th edition of Aero India, at Yelahanka air base in Bengaluru, Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021. A PTI Photo

BENGALURU (PTI):  State-run aerospace behemoth Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) on Thursday said its order book is expected to cross Rs one lakh crore mark in the next year.

"The order book was about Rs 53,000 crore, if you add Tejas (LCA) to it, it will cross Rs 80,000 crore, so that is the order book as of now, and we are expecting two more orders that is basically for LCH and HTT-40, coming up for the next year," HAL CMD R Madhavan said.

Speaking to reporters here at the Aero India 2021, he said: "We will be reaching Rs one lakh crore plus probably by next year end....this year is quite comfortable for us," he added.

Earlier in the day, the Indian Airforce formally issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to the HAL for its HTT-40 turbo trainer, the company said.

"We will be making this HTT-40 initially from Bengaluru where it was designed, later it will go to Nasik for series production..Basically it will start with 70 aircraft, we are looking at a total number of 106," Madhavan said to a question.

Madhavan said the company was quite sure about meeting its targets both in terms of financial as well as operational performance.

"We had issues with the COVID lockdown in the first two quarters, the first quarter was almost washed out, but by the third quarter we have recovered and even showing a growth over the last year," he said.

Regarding the Rs 48,000-crore order for 73 Tejas Mk-1A variants and 10 LCA Tejas Mk-1 trainer aircraft, Madhavan said as per the contract HAL has to start delivering in 36 months from now.

The first aircraft is expected to be delivered by March 2024."The first delivery will be two aircraft or something, which will be ramped up to 16. The total supply time post the first delivery is six years, that makes the total project time line of nine years. We will try to reduce it to somewhere around (by) one year."

The company has started the process of integrating the vendors into the system now itself so that they are prepared for delivering these aircraft after 36 months.

Responding to a question on private sector contribution, Madhavan said, as of today 463 vendors are involved which included MSMES and bigger companies.

"This number we expect to go up to 550 to 600 as more and more MSMES will be coming in and pitching in," he said.

"As far as the order is concerned, if you remove the tax part of it, it is worth about Rs 36,000 crore (LCA contract), out of which close to Rs 6,000 crore directly goes to MSMEs and as we are supplying ground support equipment and other things another Rs 3,000 crore is expected to go towards Indian partners."

Madhavan said the indigenous content in the aircraft is about 52 per cent and the company is looking at ways to increase it in the raw materials and hike it to 65 per cent.

Giving a break-up of the cost components, the HAL chairman said the cost for each fighter version of the aircraft will be Rs 309 crore and Rs 280 crore for the trainer.

He said "Rs 2,200 crore is ERV (Exchange Rate Variation), customs and taxes is around Rs 7,000 crore, so that makes it around Rs 9,000 crore... Rs 11,000 crore will be used for ground support equipment, spares and training aids and manuals..If you remove all this the total order is about Rs 25,000 crore."