=Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 30 (Inditop.com) Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan Wednesday said he would call a meeting next month to sort out hassles in the sanctioning of land for the second phase of development activities of Brahmos Aerospace, a joint venture between India and Russia to develop what is being claimed to be the world’s fastest cruise missile.
Addressing reporters here, he said a meeting for the purpose had been called on Oct 13.
“We will sort out the issues for the second phase development of Brahmos Aerospace,” said Achuthanandan.
It was in Dec 2007 that Keltec, a state public sector unit here was taken over by Brahmos Aerospace and a two-phased development strategy was announced.
In the first phase, Brahmos had announced a total investment of Rs.1.25 billion at the existing campus.
Of this, Rs.750 million would be invested by the Brahmos Corp and Rs.250 million each would come from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
And in the second phase, the state government was to allot seven acres of land — but it was yet to do so since Dec 2007, thereby throwing the future programmes of Brahmos Aerospace in jeopardy.
Brahmos, which the company says is the world’s fastest cruise missile, is being jointly developed by India and Russia. It is being assembled here.
This is a joint venture between India’s DRDO and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroeyenia, who have together formed the Brahmos Corp.
According to Brahmos Aerospace managing director and chief executive officer A. Sivathanu Pillai, the assembly of this state-of-the-art and the best available supersonic missiles in the world is currently being done at the Brahmos unit in Hyderabad.
The turnover of this company increased from Rs.7 crore when it was run by Keltec to Rs.25 crore after Brahmos took over this unit.
The main customers include DRDO, ISRO and the Atomic Energy programme, for which they have supplied all the robotic arms.
Pillai says another major achievement of this unit is that it supplied the main body of Shaurya — the new surface-to-surface missile that was fired last year.
