HYDERABAD: Close on the heels of the Tata-Boeing joint venture, the next high-profile company that is set to invest in Telangana’s booming defence and aerospace manufacturing sector is Pune-based multi-national conglomerate Bharat Forge Limited.

Telangana industries secretary Arvind Kumar revealed this on Friday while speaking at the curtain-raiser event of the second edition of Defence & Aerosupply India that will be held between November 30 and December 2 in the city.

Kumar said that the company will be investing over Rs 500 crore in the state and is set to apply for land next week. “We know that they will be applying for around 40 acres of land next week. Of this, 10 acres will be provided at the Adibatla aerospace and precision engineer park and the rest will be allotted elsewhere,” Kumar said, without disclosing the exact location of the land parcel.

Earlier this year, Bharat Forge had announced a 51:49 joint venture with Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems to manufacture high-tech defence components in the country. In fact, the company had said that it would set up its JV unit near Hyderabad.

Bharat Forge Limited is the flagship company of the $2.5-billion Kalyani Group and a global provider of safety and critical components/solutions to various industrial sectors including automotive, railways, power, construction & mining, aerospace, marine and oil & gas.

Speaking about the robust defence and aerospace manufacturing ecosystem in Hyderabad, Kumar said that in the last one year, the state has attracted over Rs 1,000 crore in investments in this sector.

Giving examples of the companies that have picked Telangana, he said that there were around 10 precision engineering companies that are coming up near Adibatla and the total investment has been around Rs 200 crore. This apart, Chennai-based Voith too has committed an investment of Rs 100 crore over the next four years to shift its operation to Hyderabad, the industries secretary added.

Speaking about the upcoming conference, Kumar said a 10-member French delegation from Bordeaux Aeronautics will be present at the event and the state government is mulling setting up an aviation training centre in partnership with French collaboration.

The three-day global conclave is expected to see participation from players such as Airbus, Boing, Sikorsky, Embraer, Thales India, Finmeccanica, Eurocopter, Dassault, UTC, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, and the IAMF (Israeli Aerospace Manufacturing Federation), among others, the officer added.

