Jaitley inaugurates new aeronautical test range in Karnataka's Challakere

India's defence preparedness should always be optimal, says Jaitley

Union Defence Minister Arun Jaitley inaugrated a first-of-its-kind Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), which will be used to test the country's first unmanned aircraft, in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka on Sunday.

The facility, which will spread across an area of 4,200 acres, will be the leading test centre for the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) that has been using the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd airport in Bengaluru to test fly the Tejas combat aircraft so far.

DRDO has been mulling over the idea of shifting its flight activities to a newer locale due to the crowded airspace in the conutry's IT capital, besides the rapid emergence of commercial and residential complexes around the airport area. 

The Challakere facility, located 200 kilometres (km) away from Bengaluru, is also close to other scientific institution such as the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). The strategic location would, thereby, help the Challakere complex in building and grooming scientifc manpower.

The ATR is already home to two of India's unmanned aerial vehicles- Rustom-1 and Rustom-2- that have undertaken test flights in Challakere before.

  

“India is a country that is geographically located in a region that is not free from trouble. We have a neighbor who has been perpetuating security threats for the past seven decades as far as India is concerned. And therefore our level of defense preparedness should be optimal, as it always is,” said Jaitley after inaugurating the facility. 

“And if your level of defense preparedness is always to be optimal, you need to eventually establish facilities that, to a large extent, can be manufactured within the country,” he added.

The facility, identified nearly a decade ago, was first used for dropping practice bombs for Tejas in 2010. 

With the government pushing the indigenous development of weapons and aircraft, future projects such as the Tejas Mk-2, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) and other unmanned vehicle programmes would use this test facility. DRDO has spent over Rs 290 crore in the facility that has a runway of 2.2 kms and one that would be expanded in the coming years.

“The government has, therefore, been consistently leaning in favour of a policy where we have these optimal facilities created within India,"said jaitley while adding that the centre's allied faclities would prove to be helpful in various aspects, but especially in aspects of national security.