Reliance Defence is planning to manufacturer 50-80 seater passenger aircraft in India soon with the help of its Ukraine joint venture partner Antonov.
According to M. Matheswaran, Reliance Defence’s president, their joint venture would also work with the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics to produce low cost passenger aircrafts aimed at meeting the growing demand for connectivity to nearly 400 tier-II and tier-III Indian cities.
The 51:49 joint venture between Reliance and Antonov would initially start assembling aircraft with completely knocked down (CKD) units at its aerospace park in Nagpur, coming up at Rs 6,500 crore, and complete the indigenisation over the next 15-20 years.