Tata Group to Expand Defence Business

The Tata group’s revenue from the defence business for fiscal year 2013 was over 1,700 crore and for 2014, the revenue is expected to grow by approximately 40 per cent. The current order book size of the Tata group in the defence business is in excess of 8,000 crore, according to Dr Mukund Rajan, Member, Group Executive Council and Brand Custodian, Tata Sons.

In a media roundtable, he said that despite the opening up of the sector for private players, the private sector contribution is relatively little to India’s total defence spend. There is thus a great scope to increase the contribution of private players in the sector in India.

Tata group, he said, has partnered with the defence forces across areas such as command and control, network-centric warfare including naval combat, air defence tactical communication, battlefield management systems and trusted compute platforms. With expertise in technology and project management and the effective utilisation of a wide range of competencies, the Tata group is well positioned to enter into virtually any area where the Ministry of Defence (MoD) wishes to build private sector capabilities.

Currently, 14 Tata companies are engaged in providing support to the country’s defence sector. These include Tata Motors, Tata Power (Strategic Engineering Division), Tata Advanced Systems, Tata Advanced Materials, Nelco, TCS, CMC, Tata Elxsi, TAL Manufacturing Solutions, Tata Technologies, Titan Companies Ltd, Avana Integrated Systems Ltd, Nova Integrated Systems Ltd, and Tata Industrial Services.

Examples of collaborations between Tata companies include: System integration by Tata Power SED on a Tata Motors chassis for the Akash missile system; Tata Advanced Systems Limited and TCS jointly establising engineering, tooling, training and assembly operations for Tata Advanced’s Aerostructure projects in Hyderabad; Tata Power SED and TCS working together extensively on security applications, information assurance, software defined radio software, integrated platform management system software; and software related designs for special applications.

Tata Advanced Systems, a 100 per cent Tata Sons-owned company in defence, aerospace and security, has signed contracts worth over 4,000 crore that include supplying key systems such as the command and control for the medium-range surface-to air missile being co-developed between India and Israel as well as manufacturing and assembling critical parts of helicopters and aircraft in India for global OEMs such as Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin.

Tata Motors is a leading supplier of mobility solutions to the country’s security forces. Tata Motors has been associated with the country's defence and security forces, for over 60 years, and has supplied over 1,00,000 vehicles to the Indian military and paramilitary forces, so far. With its range of products, which you will hear about very soon, Tata Motors is strategically moving from the logistics vehicle segment into the combat vehicle segment.

Through 40 years of R&D and innovation effort, Tata Power SED has evolved into one of the largest prime contractors in Indian defence, having executed programmes of national importance such as Pinaka - multi-barrel rocket launcher, Akash launcher systems for the Air Force and Army, modernisation of airfield infrastructure, to name a few. The fact that Tata Power SED is the only Indian private sector company that has won three prime contracts against global competition in Indian defence history is a testimony to its deep-rooted presence in the defence sector.