In a bid to meet the growing requirement of carbon fibre, a critical material used in defence, space and other strategic applications, Midhani, a mini ratna firm and National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) have decided to join hands to produce it.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of ‘Customers Meet’ of Midhani here on Monday, its Chairman and Managing Director M. Narayana Rao said that currently the material was being imported to meet the country’s strategic needs. He said Midhani and NAL signed a MoU to initially produce 20-25 metric tonnes per year on a pilot basis and scale up the production to 50-55 metric tonnes, which would suffice to meet the needs of the strategic sector.
He said the pilot project would be completed in six months and in the next phase the production of 50-55 tonnes would be reached in a year’s time. Subsequently, it was proposed to expand the production to 500 tonnes to meet the civilian aerospace and other needs. While Midhani was supporting the pilot phase with an investment of Rs.10-12 crore, Mr. Rao expressed the hope that the strategic industry would support the next phase with an investment of Rs.30 crore.
He said the expansion to 500 tonne would require an investment of Rs.400 crore and “we will go to government for that”, he added.
With Midhani expanding and modernising its facilities here, Mr. Rao said that currently the output was nearly 4,000 tonnes of finished products. With addition of a forging press and a melting furnace in about two months, it was expected to go up to 7,500 tonnes.
He said Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) was its biggest customer at present with the company supplying motor casings for Akash and Brahmos missiles. The order value for Akash was to the tune of Rs.250 crore and Rs.120 crore for Brahmos.
Mr. Rao said there was also a need to set up a massive national melting, refining and forging facility with an investment of Rs.500 crore to withstand competition from China.
