In the past, India has been spending several billions of dollars to purchase military helicopters for its armed forces. It is in the best interest of the Indian industry that it now plans to build helicopters in India and invest in indigenous development work for helicopters. A GEOPOLITICS REPORT
India is rapidly building capabilities to emerge as a preferred destination for manufacturing in the aerospace sector, particularly helicopters. India has skills and competencies in areas that include engineering and production. These capabilities have been recognised and harnessed by foreign companies outsourcing manufacturing work to India.
It is estimated that the Light Utility Helicopters market alone for Indian military would be an opportunity worth more than `20,000 crore. If you add another `50,000 crore worth of opportunities in the Medium- to Heavy-Lift helicopter category, the helicopter industry alone throws up a `70,000-crore opportunity over the next few years.
Between now and 2022, Indian military is expected to need over 1,000 helicopters in the cargo transport, surveillance and attack roles. Of these, the Indian Army is expected to look at acquiring nearly 500 helicopters, the Air Force about 350 helicopters and the Navy another 200 helicopters.
Of the Indian military segment requirements, the transport segment is likely to be about 55 per cent, the attack and specialised roles would be another 35 per cent and the rest would form the remaining 10 per cent of the demand. It is estimated that the military helicopter requirement in India is growing by seven per cent year-on-year and this trend is likely to only improve over the years. India is expected to spend about $20 billion on just military helicopters till 2022.
For this reason alone, the Indian helicopter industry for the military segment is witnessing unprecedented growth and this growth is being driven by state owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). HAL has played a major role in the defence aviation sector of India through its capabilities to design, manufacture and overhaul of military aircraft, ranked 34th in the list of world's top 100 defence companies.
This story is from the October 2016 edition of Geopolitics.
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This story is from the October 2016 edition of Geopolitics.
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