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HAL has brought in Adani Defence and BEML to help build the main bodies of 90 Prachand helicopters. BEML will make 48, while Adani Defence will make 42.
Prachand is India's first indigenously designed and developed combat helicopter for the Indian military.
The why: because there is a pretty big order waiting to be delivered.
The Ministry of Defence signed contracts worth ₹62,700 crore with HAL in March 2025 for 156 Prachand helicopters. Of these, 90 will go to the Indian Army and 66 to the Indian Air Force.
Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2028 and then continue over the following five years.
And this is the first time private industry is being brought into manufacturing helicopter fuselage structures for the programme.
Who does what: HAL remains the company responsible for delivering the finished Prachand helicopters.
BEML and Adani Defence will manufacture fuselage structures, effectively taking over part of the manufacturing workload before those structures eventually become part of the finished helicopters.
The fuselage is basically the helicopter's main body, the large central structure that holds the cockpit, crew and other critical systems together.
What makes Prachand special: the helicopter is designed for missions at altitudes above 5,000 metres, making it particularly useful in India's mountainous and high-altitude regions, where operating conditions are significantly tougher.
