The Hindu Business Line : Proposal for defence cluster near Pune

Pune, Sept 25 The city-based DEMA Manufacturers Association, consisting of small and medium enterprises engaged in manufacturing for Defence establishments, has proposed a defence cluster in Pune, as a public private partnership project.

Talking to presspersons, Mr D.S. Kamlapurkar, President, DEMA, said the feasibility study has been conducted and the findings were submitted to the Ministry of Defence a month ago. He said that it was looking at around 100 acres which could accommodate 50 -70 units manufacturing defence products.

He said it could also house a research and development centre, product proving facility and training centre.

The location that was being targeted was in and around Pune as it has a strong engineering base and also the DRDO labs and defence inspection authorities.

Offset contracts

Mr Kamlapurkar said that such clusters would help SMEs bag the offset contracts. According to the Ministry of Defence policy, all the major overseas contracts, valued at more than Rs 300 crore have a commitment to source 30 per cent of the contract value from Indian suppliers. This could be in the form of technology transfer or joint venture for manufacturing the items indigenously.

According to estimates, he pointed out, offset contracts valued at Rs 40,000 crore were likely to be processed by Indian industries in the next five years. He said the cluster was an attempt to create a single window, where offset partners could undertake technology transfer to local manufacturers.

New company

Mr Kamlapurkar said DEMA has also formed a new manufacturing company, DEMA Mechatronics Technology Pvt Ltd, for development and manufacturing of defence related products. He noted that it has also created a corpus to facilitate defence-related research and development amongst its member industries and has an equity base of Rs 70 lakh. The new company has around 15 members. It is currently funding the development of armament fuse and micro unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for surveillance.

He said the aircraft for the UAV was ready. The products would be offered to the Ministry of Defence by the end of calendar year 2010. The UAV’s target price, when manufactured indigenously, would be around Rs 45 lakh while the import UAV would cost around Rs 1.5 crore.

Awards

Mr Kamlapurkar said DEMA Excellence, Appreciation and Commitment Awards 2008 would be presented on September 27 at a function where Dr V. K.Saraswat, Chief Controller R&D Missiles, DRDO, would be the chief guest. It would also have an exhibition of defence related products.The Excellence award has been bagged by Symtronics Automation Ltd (development, manufacturing and supply of diesel monitoring systems for submarines), Wavelet group (multifunction display for fighter aircraft ready for integration in LCA) and Arien Incorporated (variable time-based fuses for armament).

The Appreciation Award has been bagged by Dr Surendra Kumar (Scientist and Director, ARDE), Mr P.K. Mehta (Project Director, Agni Governed System, R&D Engineers, Dighi) and Mr S.K. Chaudhary (Scientist and Associate Director of RCI, Hyderabad). The Commitment award has been bagged by Badave Engineers Ltd (support to Prithvi missile project), Padmasree Electronics (support to ground instrumentation and control for missile launcher) and Jahagirdar Aero Products (support to moving targets for missiles and armaments).

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