Hyderabad: BDL inks pact with UK missile manufacturer for ASRAAM

Hyderabad: The city-based Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) and MBDA, the United Kingdom-based missile manufacturer on Tuesday signed an agreement for establishing a facility for the Final Assembly, Integration and Test (FAIT) of Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile (ASRAAM) missiles in India.

The agreement was signed by BDL Director (Technical) NP Diwakar and MBDA International Industrial Cooperation director George Kyriakides in the presence of BDL CMD Commodore Siddharth Mishra (Retd) at a virtual ceremony.

Under the licensing agreement, MBDA will transfer equipment and knowledge to BDL for establishing the facility. The work on establishing this capability in India is due to start immediately and is expected to commence operations by 2022-23, according to a press release.

“MBDA has a long and highly successful history of working with BDL for over four decades, a partnership that has seen BDL manufacture a large number of MBDA-designed Milan missiles in India,” Kyriakides said.

The ASRAAM is one of the within visual range missiles available and the BDL will be manufacturing these at its Bhanur Unit for the domestic and export in future through the MBDA. The new facility will provide India with the ability to carry out final assembly, integration and test of ASRAAM, according to the release.

The new BDL ASRAAM facility will have the potential to also conduct maintenance, repair and overhaul of ASRAAM and can also be adapted to conduct final assembly, integration and test of the CAMM missile of MBDA, it added.