Himanshu, the above is a “stale rumour” only. As recently as Feb 2009, CAS Mr. Fali Major (retired) had publicly declared that :-
a) The number of jets to be acquired is 126 only.
b) Only one vendor will be awarded the contract. It won’t be split into 2 or more vendors.
Unfortunately, it is time and again discussed in a reputed forum like Bharat rakshak also. It has already been clarified by Chief of IAF.
Swerve, I fully agree with your views. HAL has a monopoly “gifted” by the government. Only if it “feels the heat” from private contractors, who will compete with it for foreign licence production contracts, will it finally get to innovate and come up with indigenous designs. Then it will start treating ADA, NAL and their parent, DRDO, more “seriously”.
In the civillian space, Tata motors was not able to compete with Korean and Japanese assembly units in India. It’s own Tata Indica was an Italian licence design, complete with a foreign engine. It had to innovate with the Nano.
Similarly, Bajaj (formerly Bajaj-Kawasaki) and TVS (formerly TVS-Suzuki) cancelled their JV with Kawazaki and Suzuki respectively. They went solo and superbly innovated the world’s first twin-spark plug engines for motorbikes to keep Yamaha, Suzuki and Honda at bay in India (although Hero-Honda is still the largest selling).
Even Chinese motorbike makers were caught copying Bajaj’s designs in Latin American markets.
Even Chinese motorbike makers were caught copying Bajaj’s designs in Latin American markets.
born photocopier machine :yikes:
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