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L&T Ties Up With DRDO for Defense Production; L&T Mulls Expansion in Aerospace Segment

2009-01-22 Engineering heavyweight Larsen & Toubro (L&T) will tie up with DRDO to setup a research facility for weapons conceptualization for all commercial production undertaken by DRDO.

"We are not looking to set up something parallel to the DRDO. It will be complementary .. As far as investments are concerned, we are ready. Once the green signal is given (by the government), then we can work on it," L&T Board Member M V Kotwal.

DRDO's Focus on R&D
Elaborating on the research facility, he said the DRDO will play a valuable role if it restricts to real cutting edge high-end technologies, which India is yet to acquire. There are huge facilities and capable people in the DRDO, Kotwal said. The premier defence research agency should look at the front-end, which requires large investments, because that is what it already has, he said. "DRDO has huge facilities and capable people," the L&T official said.

L&T's Role
L&T would concentrate on applying the high-end technologies developed by DRDO, he said. "We can take up that role rather than DRDO wasting its time." But as far as applying those technologies are concerned, L&T can take up that role, Kotwal said. "We are geared up for things."

The heavy engineering firm is also planning investments at its manufacturing base in Coimbatore where various divisions of the company are setting up a unit. The Coimbatore facility was mainly for defence and aerospace equipment manufacturing, Kotwal said, adding, "The facility would concentrate on high precision manufacturing."

Also, it being a base for high-precision manufacturing, the company has set up two modules there, he said. "We have capacity to add on because it is a very large area."

L&T Aviation
The private company is looking at building aircraft as well at Coimbatore, but it depends on government policies, he said. As there is no road map for aircraft manufacturing, "Today we are talking about precision manufacturing. We are supporting a large number of Hindustan Aeronautical Ltd (HAL) programmes. Not only metallics, but composites," he said.

"We intend growing in that area. The base at Coimbatore can build towards aircraft manufacturing." "There is a potential to go into full aircraft manufacturing in the years to come. We are progressively going in the direction. But there is no immediate plan to get into the commercial aircraft business," the L&T board member said.

L&T-HAL
As of now, HAL in Bangalore is the only aircraft maker for air force. L&T has been working for HAL to make sub-assemblies. "In addition to Coimbatore, we have got a facility in Vadodara. That has been expanded to take up composite manufacture, which are used for aircraft and missiles," Kotwal said.