Gujarat to get aircraft manufacturing facility soon: PM Modi

It is official. Gujarat will soon get an aircraft manufacturing facility while its parts will be manufactured in the engineering cluster Rajkot, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally on Wednesday.

This comes a day after BusinessLine broke the story about Gujarat getting the first private aircraft manufacturing facility in a deal estimated at ₹20,000 crore.

““The day is not far when Aeroplanes will be manufactured in Gujarat soon, and their spare parts will be made in Rajkot, “ the Prime Minister said, addressing a rally at Rajkot.

The engineering business led by the MSMEs in Rajkot has leap-frogged in development.” Rajkot has shown its prowess by producing pumps and machine tools. There is no coroner of this country where Rajkot’s engineering products have not reached,” Modi said, adding that cars are made in Gujarat, exported to Japan, and their spare parts are made in Rajkot. This is the biggest pride, he said.

There was a time when Gujarat never produced a cycle. Mark my words, the day is not far when this Gujarat will make aeroplanes and Rajkot will make its spares,” Modi said amid cheers from the audience.

A day ago, Businessline reported that the Defence Ministry had signed a deal with European aviation major Airbus last year to acquire 56 C295 aircraft.

In September of 2021, Airbus signed a contract to deliver the first 16 aircraft in ‘flyaway’ condition from its final assembly line in Seville, Spain, while the remaining 40 aircraft will be manufactured and assembled by Tata Advanced Systems (TASL), the defence arm of Tatas, in India.

Sources aware of the development said that the places considered for establishing the final assembly line for C295 aircraft are Dholera near Ahmedabad and Vadodara.