NEW DELHI: British aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce on Sunday said it is looking at making India its third “home market” outside of the UK in line with a plan to unlock the full potential of opportunities across an array of domains, including jet engines, naval propulsion, land systems and advanced engineering.
Elaborating on the move, Sashi Mukundan, the executive vice-president of Rolls-Royce India, said the company is planning for a “big investment” in the country, and listed developing a next-generation
The company is looking to develop a next-generation aero engine in India as a priority to power the combat jets that New Delhi will produce
aero engine in India as a priority to power the combat jets that New Delhi will produce under the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) programme.
Mukundan also highlighted how Rolls-Royce can contribute significantly to addressing India’s requirement for electric propulsion capability for boosting the Indian Navy’s combat prowess.
The AMCA engine core can be modified into a naval marine engine and it can also be used for electric propulsion, he suggested, noting that Rolls-Royce is among a very few engine makers globally to have the capability to “marinize the aero engine”.
Mukundan, without divulging specific details, said Rolls-Royce was eyeing making a significant investment to expand its footprint in India, noting that the country has “scale, policy clarity and a strong push” towards a defence and industrial ecosystem that is expanding rapidly and becoming more sophisticated.
“If everything goes well, it would be a significant investment. It’ll be big enough that people will notice it, but I don’t want to put a number to it. What matters is the impact of this investment, which would be the development of the entire value chain and ecosystem here across sectors that we operate in,” he said.
The top Rolls-Royce executive said the company will firm up two Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with two defence public sector undertakings in India. While one pact is for manufacturing the engines for Arjun tanks, the other is for engines for the future ready combat vehicles.
In October, CEO Tufan Erginbilgic, during a business roundtable had conveyed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India is going to be very critical for RollsRoyce going forward.
“We have developed two other home markets outside the UK — the US and Germany. We want to make India our next one. We want to do everything across the field, and it’s not just defence,” Mukundan said.