Rolls-Royce: “A natural partner in India’s journey of self-reliance”
The world is recuperating from the devastating effects of a continuing pandemic and economies are slowly rising from this crisis, finding more resilient and innovative ways to survive and succeed. Amidst this, India is pursuing its ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ vision, which is also reflected strongly in its outlook for future of the defence sector.
Not surprisingly, India today has the third largest Army, the fourth largest Air Force and the seventh largest Navy in the world. India is fifth on the list of the world’s biggest military spenders. Further, given changing geopolitical considerations, Defence remains a critical sector from the perspective of national security and the government is well aligned in its goal to develop a high degree of self-reliance in Defence, as in other sectors.
Currently, the country is at the right juncture to build a vibrant local defence industry ecosystem that could support both domestic and export demand. With a mix of defence public sector undertakings and private companies, as well as research capabilities and manufacturing set-ups, India has a huge defence industrial base. This provides an excellent opportunity to build and/or scale up an industrial base centred on indigenous manufacturing. Co-creation and subsequent manufacturing for India and for the world, is a goal we can aspire to achieve in this sector. However, if we need to accelerate the pace of indigenisation, we perhaps need a quantum leap in the way it is approached.
India today has the width and the weight to invest in co-creation programmes through collaboration with willing global players with the goal to co-develop relevant technologies and IP in critical areas. With a co-owned IP in areas of strategic importance, not only can India commercialise production locally, but also use its base to become a global supplier and exporter of defence technologies.
A co-development and co-creation led strategy would be attractive to global players at both Government to Government as well as Government to Global Private sector
level. A shared research and development programme will distribute the risks among the parties, and if the outcome is breakthrough innovation, the rewards could be significant for all. There are several examples of such a model thriving in this part of the world, such as the UK-Japan co-development programme for air-to-air missiles, UK-Singapore collaboration to co-develop new technologies that will power the future of aircraft propulsion, better counter-terrorism measures and a more efficient military logistics system.
Rolls-Royce: India’s Partner in Progress
Rolls-Royce has been India’s military partner for nearly nine decades, with over 750 engines of 10 engine types powering aircraft of the Indian military. Our MTU brand of engines power India’s indigenouslyd-eveloped Arjun Main Battle Tanks as well as several Indian Coast Guard and Navy ships.
The company has been an early proponent of ‘Make in India’. For the last 60 years, Rolls-Royce engines have been made in India, under license by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), India’s largest defence manufacturer. We have strong joint ventures for manufacturing and work closely with supply chain partners to deliver global quality standards from India. We have also nurtured engineering talent in India to work on global research and development (R&D) programmes.
With a legacy partnership that rests on many years of capability development and co-manufacturing, Rolls-Royce is committed to partnering India’s progress. We believe the future will be all about ‘Creating in India’ in collaboration with willing global players, with India co-owning the Intellectual Property (IP) in areas of strategic importance. This will catapult India’s vision to create a strong ecosystem and commercialise production locally, and eventually use this base to boost global supply chain and export capabilities.
Additionally, as India progresses towards ‘Atmanirbharta’, it must embrace technology at an increasing pace across all spheres of industry and society. Specifically, in the defence sector, the country’s aspiration to evolve from a regional power to a global power will need to be coupled with the creation of well-defined initiatives focused on indigenisation and self-reliance, driven by technology at its core.
Rolls-Royce has a strong base of capabilities across technology development to supply chain and manufacturing, built over many years. Add to this our proven commitment to India through successful transfer of whole engine technology. We have also successfully participated in and led international combat engine collaborations in many markets. We believe, therefore, that Rolls-Royce is well positioned as natural partners in India’s defence growth and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ journey.
We believe the time is right for pursuing opportunities in partnership, co-creation and co-production to build a robust local manufacturing sector, which will also contribute significantly to economic growth in the future.