The First Step

Ghazala Wahab

In 2012, chairman Kalyani Group Baba Kalyani called one of his directors (Kalyani Strategic Systems), Col Rajinder Singh Bhatia to his office. An idea had planted itself in chairman’s head and was troubling him. Recounting the meeting, which eventually had far-reaching consequences for the Group, though unknown at that time, Col Bhatia, now president and chief executive officer, defence and aerospace, Bharat Forge Ltd (an offshoot of Kalyani Group), says, “The chairman was perturbed when I entered his room. He asked me, ‘Colonel, why has India not been able to produce an artillery gun? Is it so difficult to make a gun?’ He had read some article about the state of Indian artillery and how nothing had happened since 1986.”

Inside Kalyani Group’s gun production unit

Col Bhatia assured his chairman that it was not difficult to make a gun if they set their heart and mind to it. Being one of the leading names worldwide in the forging business, and with their expertise in metallurgy, Kalyani saw artillery as a natural progression of his existing business. Hence, they started to put together the building blocks. The first step was off-the-shelf purchase of a 155/45mm Austrian gun, which entailed fair amount of paperwork and persuasion. After all, how could a private entity import a weapon system! Since this had never happened before there was no regulatory framework for such a requirement.

Eventually, persistence paid. The Kalyani Group was able to procure the gun, which became its primer. The next step was creating a production facility. An entire manufacturing line was acquired from Ruag of Switzerland, which included tools, fixture, furnaces etc., to create a competitive unit in Pune. The process took nearly a year, and by 2013, the gun plant was ready to roll.

With infrastructure in place, the focus shifted to the training of manpower. According to Bhatia, a team of ‘master engineers’ was picked up from within the com