Joining the government's Make in India programme, home-grown OIS Aerospace group on Monday announced two joint ventures - with Rafaut and LH Aviation of France - for manufacturing advanced weapons-to-aircraft interface devices and multi-sensor tactical UAVs.
The first JV with Rafaut, a major supplier of weapons-to-aircraft interface systems in Europe, will make 'pile-ons' for the fighter aircrafts to carry the weapons, besides conducting further research and developments to make the product more advanced and suitable as per the requirements in India.
The second JV with LH Aviation, a French aircraft manufacture, will set up a separate manufacturing plant in India for multi-sensor tactical UAV fighter aircraft that can fly up to 24 hours.
Announcing the two JVs here at the 51st Paris International Air Show, OIS Group's Founder Chairman and Managing Director Sanjay Bhandari told PTI that his group has come forward to join the Make in India initiative of the Narendra Modi government through these pacts in the highly-important defence sector.
When asked by when the two projects can hit the ground, Bhandari said, "We are looking to fairly soon operationalise them." Without giving the exact investment amount for the two manufacturing units, he said that the scale of investments across various projects of OIS Group is over Rs 500 crore.
"Rafaut which makes pile-ons to carry weapons on an aircraft, has agreed to jointly manufacture the product in India and also do a strategic collaboration for R&D to customise the system for India and do further improvements as per the requirements," he said.
Jacques Rafaut, the Chairman of Rafaut, said that the JV gives his company "an opportunity to partner with a technology-focused company like OIS-AT to present our products range and foster collaborative relationships with India."
"Rafaut is pleased to be a participant in the 'Make in India's adventure, though we have long experience of doing business in India as some of our systems have been in use on the Indian Mirage 2000 for more than 30 years," he added.
The JV between Rafaut and OIS Advanced Technology would include an exclusive strategic collaboration for R&D,transfer of technology,manufacturing, marketing, sales and services of a range of weapons- to- aircraft interface devices and flight controls equipment and sub-systems.
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