Apart from its plan to produce the mighty Gripen E fighter jet in India, Swedish defence giant Saab Group also has designs to transform it into a global manufacturing export hub as per the Defence Ministry’s requirements.
Saab is already producing camouflage equipment in Gurugram and has set up a research and development (R&D) centre in Hyderabad. It also has a joint venture with Tech Mahindra in Belgaum for providing parts to Airbus and Boeing.
“Saab is actually planning to go beyond Make in India. We want to make India a net exporter and provide indigenous capability to the Indian Air Force,” Kent-Ake Molin, Commercial Manager at Saab, said here on Friday.
Saab is betting big on India keeping in mind the need of the Indian Air Force to modernise its aging fleet. As a result, the company is eyeing to grab a deal from the IAF for 200 single-engine jet fighters.
The Ministry of Defence had floated RFIs in October last year for single-jet fighter planes to be manufactured in India. As a result, the Defence Ministry had sent out letters to three leading companies, out of which Saab was one. Saab could clear the first round.
However, the government is also keen that apart from setting up their assembly lines here, the selected company should also seek to sell those aircraft from India.
“We are working on the next level of requirement,” he said.
Saab is facing a stiff competition with US’ Lockheed Martin that has offered to make its latest version of F-16s in India by shifting the entire assembly line out from US and putting it up here in India.
“We have mobilised a robust global supply chain for India. We are not doing a copy and paste of our Sweden’s facility here. The facility we set up here will be new,” Molin highlighted.
But he said the manufacturing unit will come up in India only if they are able to win the government’s programme.
The company is also prepared to offer all the variants of Gripen to India – Gripen E (single seat), Gripen F (two seat) and Gripen M (maritime).