Rajnath Singh calls Light Combat Aircraft pride of India, says nation can make fighters of class in house

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday lauded efforts by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to increase the production capacity of Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), which he said is going to be the backbone of Indian Air Force fighter fleet in coming years. The Minister's inaugurated the second plant HAL's LCA division in Bengaluru today.

"HAL's new LCA facility is an example of how 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' is shaping and HAL deserves the largest indigenous order of 83 LCA Mk-IA. LCA is the pride of India and sends the right message to others that India can make fighters of class in-house. The fighter is superior in many ways when compared to other fighters in its category besides being cost-effective," said Singh. He complimented HAL for working throughout the COVID pandemic and bringing out the new facility.

"The Company has a lot of talent and more orders should come in its way in future. We cannot depend on others on security issues and therefore will make HAL stronger, whatever it takes", he added. Speaking during the event, Raj Kumar, Secretary, Defence Production said HAL has taken timely steps proactively to set up the facility well ahead of receiving the order.

Chairman and Managing Director of HAL R Madhavan, called the Defence Minister's visit a great morale booster to HAL. "The phase -1 of the facility getting ready on 35 acres of land will enable HAL to enhance its production capacity to 16 from the current eight aircraft every year," said Madhavan.

Karnataka Minister Aravind Limbavali, Air Marshal Sandeep Singh and many other senior officials from the defence fraternity were also present on the occasion. According to the HAL, the state of the art machines such as CNC profilers, and five-axis machining centers for producing technologically challenging, high-pressure fluid cell press machine, test rigs, specialized facilities for heat treatment, special processes, and hangars for structural assembly of aircraft are being created in new LCA Complex.

"The production tooling and productivity improvement initiatives have also been undertaken by adopting the latest simulation software packages under capacity augmentation," said HAL's statement.