A Rs 30,000 crore surface-to-air missile unit is going to be built by Bharat Dynamics
A Rs 30,000 crore surface-to-air missile unit is going to be built by Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL) in Andhra Pradesh's Rangareddy district.
Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Sunday laid the foundation stone for the project on Sunday, media reports said.
The project is expected to be up and running in 3 years. Spread over an area of 630 acres, the unit will manufacture around 6,000 missiles and create 1,000 officer-level jobs.
Missile units are being set up in Medak, Visakhapatnam and Ibrahimpatnam. The production of missiles will begin once the acceptancy tests are completed by the Army, Navy and Air Force at various levels. Cooperation is being taken from two countries for technology transfer.
"The facility will produce sophisticated medium range surface-to-air missiles. We will invest over 30,000 crore spread over the next two Five Year Plans (12th and 13th)," said BDL chairman and managing director Maj Gen Ravi Khetarpal adding the company can manufacture all types of missiles for the Indian armed forces.
"While some of the production we undertake is through foreign collaboration for transfer of technology, we also produce missiles developed indigenously by the DRDO. For others, we do our own value addition," he explained.
This is BDL's fourth manufacturing unit in Andhra Pradesh and the fifth such facility in the country. So far, it has produced over one lakh missiles.