Manohar Parrikar’s 2017 letter advised against making any change in the organisational structure of BrahMos Thiruvananthapuram unit

At this clip erstwhile a reported determination to delink the Thiruvananthapuram portion of BrahMos Aerospace from its genitor organisation has sparked concern, a missive written by the past Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar successful 2017 is erstwhile again grabbing attention.

Mr. Parrikar had written that the “capabilities and potential” of BrahMos Aerospace Thiruvananthapuram Ltd. (BATL) were being afloat utilised successful the defence and atomic sectors nether the guidance of the genitor firm, the Indo-Russian rocket JV BrahMos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. (BAPL). This being the case, it was “not advisable to marque immoderate alteration successful the organisational operation successful BATL arsenic it would adversely impact the show of the company,” helium had said.

In this missive dated February 6, 2017, to the past State president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Kummanam Rajasekharan, Mr. Parrikar further observed that BATL was going done the ‘improvement successful performance’ signifier and, astatine the time, had orders worthy ₹330 crore successful its kitty.

Future successful spotlight

Mr. Parrikar’s missive besides makes enactment of a constituent that gains relevance successful the contiguous discourse wherever BATL’s aboriginal is nether the spotlight. In a caller missive to Shashi Tharoor, MP, the contiguous Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had stated that the projected “transfer” of BATL was successful enactment with the provisions successful the March 2007 bid issued by the Kerala authorities handing implicit Kerala Hi-Tech Industries Ltd. (KELTEC) to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for establishing BATL. What Mr. Singh’s missive failed to instrumentality enactment was the information that the March 2007 bid handing implicit KELTEC to the DRDO — which has partnered Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia successful the JV for the BrahMos rocket programme — was amended successful October 2007 to the effect that KELTEC was handed implicit straight to BAPL.

Mr. Parrikar’s letter, however, does notation this. “Since DRDO was fundamentally an R&D organisation not engaged successful accumulation activities, based connected the treatment betwixt the Government of India and the Government of Kerala, it was decided to manus implicit KELTEC straight to BrahMos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. (BAPL), a associated task of Government of India and Russia, considering the strategical value of the programme,” it says.

Mr. Rajnath Singh’s September 19, 2025, missive had sought to allay concerns stating that DRDO volition stay the bulk stakeholder and BATL jobs would proceed to travel the systems successful place.