Orange City turns Aero City: Foundation stone of Defense Unit was laid by CM Fadnavis in Nagpur

NewsBharati    28-Oct-2017
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Nagpur, October 28: Investing around Rs. 6,500 Crore foundation stone of ambitious Defense project was laid by the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and the Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. This ambitious project Dhirubhai Ambani Aerospace Park (DAAP) has collaborated with Dassault Aviation. The Foundation Stone was laid in the presence of Florence Parly, Minister of Armed Forces of the French Republic while Nitin Gadkari, Fadnavis and H.E. Alexandre Ziegler, Ambassador of France to India were also present on the occasion. 

The DAAP will be home to the Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL), a 51:49 joint venture between Reliance Aerostructure and Dassault Aviation, the French aviation major specializing in defence aircraft. The Dhirubhai Ambani Aerospace Park at MIHAN, spread over 289 acres, will be the largest Greenfield Aerospace Park in the country with capital investment of over Rs 6,500-crore. The project is being developed in two phases; in Phase I, development will be spread over 104 acres, while Phase II will see an additional area of 185 acres being covered.In the DAAP, the Reliance Group will set up assembly lines and manufacturing facilities of fixed wing aircraft, aerostructure for commercial transport aircraft, besides helicopters for defence and commercial uses.

 

The DRAL would be the lead project for executing the offset programme of the Rafale fighter jets and the partnership will bring in not only high-level Transfer of Technology, but also help develops the ecosystem of the domestic aerospace sector and feed into the global supply chain.

Dassault Aviation Chairman, Eric Trappier, declared that “this Foundation Stone laying demonstrates Dassault’s firm commitment to implementing Prime Minister Modi’s “Make in India” program. It gives the 65 year-long strong association of Dassault-Aviation in India a new momentum and the will of future manufacturing developments.”

In 2016, India signed a 7.9 billion euros ($8.8 billion) contract for purchasing 36 Rafale fighter jets in fly-away condition which incorporated a 50 per cent offset clause, mandating that 50 per cent of the deal value would be invested in the Indian defence ecosystem.

While the first lot of the Rafale jets from France is expected to be delivered by September 2019, the remaining will be delivered after another 30 months (around March 2022). As part of the mandatory offsets under this deal, France will invest 30 per cent of the total deal cost in India’s military aeronautics related research programmes and another 20 per cent towards the local production of Rafale components. The DAAP project will be developed in two phases-the first over an area of 104 acres to be operational in 2018, and later the second over 185 acres of land at the Multi-modal International Hub Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN).