French avionics giant, Reliance in talks for smart city projects

[Water Car Engineer]

French avionics giant, Reliance in talks for smart city projects

Thales Group, the 13 billion euro French defence electronics firm, is planning a likely foray into “intelligent transport solutions” with an Indian partner, besides scaling up its existing operations in India radar and avionics systems.


“There are very interesting prospects in India’s smart cities projects,” Thales chairman and CEO Patrice Caine told HT.

“We are at initial stage of discussion for partnering with the (Anil Ambani-led) Reliance Group for smart city projects.”

Thales, in which French firm Dassault group holds 25.3% stake, already has a joint venture with public sector Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) to make radars for both military and civilian markets in India.

It has another joint venture with New Delhi-based Samtel Display Systems Ltd to locally produce and sell avionics systems and helmet-mounted sight display systems for IAF.

“With BEL we are co-developing radars. These products are for both Indian market and exports, and will be developed in a couple of years. With Samtel the production of display for Mirage 2000 upgrade will start soon,” he said.

Recently, L&T Technology Services purchased 74% of the equity capital of Thales Software India Pvt. Ltd.