Jayant Patil, Whole-time Director (Defence) and Member, L&T Board, said the company has chosen Coimbatore for manufacture of rocket engines. “We will start manufacture of rocket engines at the second factory in Coimbatore by the close of the current fiscal. This is to cater to the increasing demand from the ISRO,” he said, speaking at a function to mark the completion of delivery of the 1,000th Integrated Propulsion Airframe System hardware for the Akash missile. Akash is an all-weather medium-range surface to air missile system, developed indigenously, as part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme.
The Integrated Propulsion Airframe System hardware is a critical system of the Akash missile, he explained, adding and said that this hardware is manufactured and integrated at the company’s facility in Coimbatore.
Patil further said that L&T Defence, the defence arm of Larsen and Toubro (L&T), has been associated with the Akash missile programme for several decades.
Reverting to manufacture of rocket engines for ISRO, he said: “the company has a similar facility at Vadodara. This new facility in Coimbatore would be an addition, as the demand has more than doubled. We make 10 sets a year.”