Tata-Airbus project | Shinde-Fadnavis government faces flak from Opposition for losing yet another big-ticket enterprise to Gujarat

The Central government announced that the ₹22,000 crore Tata-Airbus project for manufacturing military transport aircraft would now come up in Vadodara in Gujarat despite Maharashtra government’s efforts to locate it in Nagpur

Barely a month after losing out the Vedanta-Foxconn project to neighbouring Gujarat, the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis-led government in Maharashtra suffered the loss of another big-ticket project after the Centre announced that the ₹22,000 crore Tata-Airbus project for manufacturing military transport aircraft would now come up in Vadodara in Gujarat despite the State government’s efforts to locate it in Nagpur.

The Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition came under heavy Opposition flak on Thursday, which charged it with ineptness of repeatedly losing big projects with the potential for massive employment generation in Maharashtra.

The Tata-Airbus C-295 project, involving the manufacture of 56 military transport aircraft which is to replace the IAF’s older Avro aircraft, is to be a manufacturing milestone in which military aircraft is to be manufactured indigenously by a private company in order to boost the Make-in-India defence programme.

16 of the aircraft are to be delivered in flyaway condition by Airbus Defence and Space SA, Spain and the remaining 40 are to be manufactured in India by the Indian aircraft contractor - Tata consortium of Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) led by TASL.

While the Centre’s announcement that the project would come up in Gujarat is expected to strengthen the BJP’s electoral chances in the poll-bound state, the move comes as a major embarrassment to the Shinde-Fadnavis government, which had been attempting to locate the project at the Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport (MIHAN) in Nagpur.

Unsurprisingly, the Opposition Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena faction and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) pounced on the ruling government, still smarting from the ‘flight’ of the ₹1.5 lakh crore Vedanta-Foxconn project, and demanded the resignations of State Industries Minister Uday Samant and Chief Minister Shinde.

Former Minister and Worli MLA Aaditya Thackeray lambasted the Shinde-Fadnavis government in a Twitter post.