The Finance Minister allocated almost Rs 6 lakh crore towards defence in the Union Budget for 2023, the last full budget before Lok Sabha polls. Following this infusion, state-owned Hindustan Aeronotics Limited has received a Rs 6,800 crore order from the Ministry of Defence. The firm will be supplying 70 HTT-40 trainer aircraft to the forces, to meet the shortage of airplanes for basic training of newly inducted pilots.
Focusing on local suppliers
To be supplied over a period of six years, the aircraft will come with 56 per cent indigenous parts, which will later be scaled up to 60 per cent. The order will also result in employment for thousands of people, through more than a 100 small and medium sized businesses, where components will be procured from.
In addition to this, the ministry has also ordered three cadet training ships worth Rs 3,100 crore from L&T. The order comes after HAL displayed its products at the Global Investor Summit in Visakhapatnam.
Last month, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also hailed HAL's rise as a reply to claims about the firm getting weakened over the years. The public sector firm had posted a whopping 23 per cent jump in profits for the October-December quarter.
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