Lucknow: India major Bharat Forge Limited (BFL) today signed up a partnership MoU with American firm General Atomics to probe opportunities to develop and integrate power generation, storage, control and distribution technologies to surface and underwater naval platforms to meet Indian requirements.

“We have been relentlessly working towards bringing niche technologies in the country with the aim of making India self-reliant in defence vertical. This partnership with General Atomics is a firm step in the direction to develop new technologies in-house to produce benchmark products for naval systems, reduce expenditure due to dependency on imports and setting up a strong defence technology and manufacturing vertical within India,” Bharat Forge Chairman and Managing Director Baba Kalyani said on the occasion.

“We look forward to working with Bharat Forge to develop strategies for bringing advanced power, energy, and weapon system capabilities to India in support of Indian defence initiatives,” General Atomics’ Electromagnetic Systems Group (GA-EMS) President Scott Forney said.

BFL is a technology solutions provider and forging company, while GA-EMS is a research, design, and manufacture of a diverse portfolio of electromagnetic and advanced power and energy technologies.

BFL also signed another MoU with DASTAN Corp. of Kyrgyzstan, which is engaged in development of torpedoes with advanced homing heads for ship-borne and submarine platforms, used by the Indian Navy.

The two firms are coming together for joint upgradation of CET-65E Torpedoes and to participate in jointly identified and mutually agreeable opportunities and programmes related to the underwater weapon systems and products in India and other territories.

“We are very excited to enter the marine business segment. This collaboration brings together the manufacturing and technology excellence of two leading companies. We are looking forward to spread our foot print in this segment while working under the policy of ‘Make in India‘, said Baba Kalyani after the MoU signing.

In September 2019, DASTAN Corp. and Bharat Forge decided to collaborate for joint naval trials of new homing systems for CET65 and TEST71 torpedoes that are presently in use by the Indian Navy.

“The Stage-I of this project has been successfully completed at DASTAN Corp. and in February to March 2020 we plan to proceed to the Stage-II, that is, to carry out environmental naval field tests in the Indian Ocean. We are hoping that successful results of these trials will enable us to carry out upgradation of all CET65 and TEST71 articles in operation with Indian Navy,” DASTAN Corp. President Talaybek Temiraliev said.