The pretigious Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has been has been damaging for years its own prestige by turning itself into a mere company that "imports, assembles and supplies." And it has not helped its cause either by suppressing the information on the quantum of its imports when its performance came under severe criticism in reports of two official panels.
When the Ravindra Gupta Task Force Report on Defence Modernisation and Self Reliance stated that HAL has become a mere assembler of imported aircraft components with its imports content at 77.3 percent of the cost in the decade between 2000-01 and 2010-11, it set off a new practice of omitting import details in its annual reports from 2011-12; the same were omitted in the 20112-13 report as well. This invited the wrath of a seven-member defence integrated staff committee report that addressed itself to the question of problems and solutions for setting up a feasible and self-reliant civil and military aviation industry.
Indianmandarins has learnt that the defence committee, headed by former Air Marshal M Matheshwaran, accused HAL of window-dressing to cover up its failures in indigenisation. "HAL's model ... has resulted in very little indigenisation, less than expected ancillary job and revenue generation within India, besides inadequate vendor development. Along with scanty vendor development in terms of true value and criticality of product to the aircraft itself, there is negligible impact on skill development within the DPSU/PSU," the report points out.
HAL charged with window dressing
By IndianMandarins - 2016-02-09 11:17:17
The pretigious Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has been has been damaging for years its own prestige by turning itself into a mere company that "imports, assembles and supplies." And it has not helped its cause either by suppressing the information on the quantum of its imports when its performance came under severe criticism in reports of two official panels.
When the Ravindra Gupta Task Force Report on Defence Modernisation and Self Reliance stated that HAL has become a mere assembler of imported aircraft components with its imports content at 77.3 percent of the cost in the decade between 2000-01 and 2010-11, it set off a new practice of omitting import details in its annual reports from 2011-12; the same were omitted in the 20112-13 report as well. This invited the wrath of a seven-member defence integrated staff committee report that addressed itself to the question of problems and solutions for setting up a feasible and self-reliant civil and military aviation industry.
Indianmandarins has learnt that the defence committee, headed by former Air Marshal M Matheshwaran, accused HAL of window-dressing to cover up its failures in indigenisation. "HAL's model ... has resulted in very little indigenisation, less than expected ancillary job and revenue generation within India, besides inadequate vendor development. Along with scanty vendor development in terms of true value and criticality of product to the aircraft itself, there is negligible impact on skill development within the DPSU/PSU," the report points out.
