Rajnath Singh lauds HAL on its performance in both operations and finance

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday lauded the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) saying that its performance in both operations and finance has been excellent.

"HAL is among the DPSUs whose performance both in operations as well as finance in the past five years has been excellent. During this time, the company achieved operational clearances on seven platforms including LCA (Tejas) and Light Combat Helicopter (LCH)," he said while speaking at an event here.

Stressing that HAL has also done the overhauling of platforms such as Hawk and Su-30, the Defence Minister said: "India's Defence export is increasing. In the last two years, it has been Rs 17,000 crore. India's dependence can't be on imports for a long time. We don't want to see India only as an importer country. On your capabilities, I would say India will one day become an exporter country."

During his address, Singh also mentioned Srinivas Gowda, the player of Kambala game, who was recently in the news.

"We recently heard of Srinivas Gowda, the player of Kambala game, who completed 145 m race in 13.62 seconds and he was compared to Olympic champion Usain Bolt as well. I am impressed by his humility when I read that on being asked about comparison with Usain Bolt, he said I am as good as the buffaloes who participated with me in the race," he said.