Air Marshal P Rajkumar and BR Srikanth

One of the aims of the LCA programme was indigenization of equipment through the private sector. Over 300 private sector companies—small and medium enterprises—have made a significant contribution to indigenisation of the programme. 

This chapter provides a glimpse of the role of the private sector in the programme. 

Accepting the gauntlet thrown by HAL, the private sector has risen to the occasion to roll out state-of-the-art systems, sub-systems, components and test equipment. They could move up the value chain by making all types of simulators besides providing equipment for the next generation Tejas Mk2, Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) and other futuristic programmes in aeronautics. Small companies, working out of garages and on shoe-string budgets, are known for their ability to incubate new technologies as they are not constrained by bureaucratic hurdles and organisational hierarchies. 

The Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Indian Navy (IN) would like to deal with only a single enterprise for delivery of aircraft and product support during their service life. The company assigned with the responsibility of manufacturing, delivering the aircraft to the customer, and providing product support was Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). The company realised it would not be able to do justice to the aim of indigenization of components to the desired extent on its own. It decided to outsource major airframe components to companies in the private sector. The airframe was divided into four major subassemblies, and production based on HAL-released drawing was farmed out to the private sector. The airframe assemblies were front section of the fuselage including the cockpit, centre fuselage, rear fuselage, wings, fin and rudder.

The private companies chosen by HAL after due diligence were Dynamatic Technologies, Bengaluru, for the front fuselage, VEM Technologies, Hyderabad, for the centre fuselage Alpha Tocol Engineering Services, Bengaluru, for the rear fuselage. The task of manufacturing the wings was assigned to Larsen & Toubro (L&T