INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL NATION BUILDING INDIA’S

The Central Government has approved the PLI scheme as a follow-through of the liberalised Drone Rules, 2021 released on August 25, 2021. These initiatives will catalyse growth in the emerging drone sector. Drone market is projected to reach up to `2,95,000 crore by 2030. India is now a green zone where no permission is required to operate a drone.

Job Creation

There are two kinds of jobs that are created with the growth of aviation sector, direct and indirect employment. Direct Employment include those who are directly employed by the airline, for example, pilots, cabin crew, all technical and non-technical staff, this is around 175 for a narrow-body aircraft. And, adding indirect people i.e. external to the company, supporting the aircraft including airport staff, air traffic controllers, transport vendors, service providers, and others, this number comes up to 400 for a narrow body plane. Direct employment in case of widebody is around 250 to 300 and after including indirect employment, this number can go up to 600 to 700. That’s the magnitude of the creation of jobs in the Indian aviation sector which has around 700 commercial aircraft, a majority of them being narrow-body and poised for expansion to more than 1,100 planes comprising wide-body and narrow-body aircraft. In India, narrow-body aircraft currently account for 82.5 per cent of the current fleet of major commercial Indian airlines, whereas wide-body aircraft are at seven per cent.

India’s aviation regulator, the DGCA, also needs to increase its workforce to keep up with the gruelling demand of monitoring the country’s expanding fleet. It is believed that DGCA also plans to hire 1,000 employees by the end of this decade. Air traffic controllers are also in high demand, particularly as new airports are being built nationwide.

The airline industry also gives back to the community through its support to charitable organisations. Every major airline has contributed substantially to charities and philanthropic activities. Multi-skill Development Centre (MSDC) for Aviation Skilling has been set up at Chandigarh under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scheme funded by Airports Authority of India (AAI). Aviation Skill Development Centre has been set up at Mumbai by LearnNet Skills as training implementation partner for CSR project of AAI.

Skilling India

In the hierarchy of skills relevant to Aviation, the demand for skilled cockpit crew is top priority. The DGCA has officially approved 31 flying training organisations in India of which, the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Udaan Academy (IGRUA), is run by the Central Government and enjoys a very good professional reputation. The next skill-set is related to maintaining the aircraft. The list of DGCAapproved Aircraft Maintenance Engineering (AME) Training Institutes is 51 but the general level of satisfaction is low and some of these lack access to an actual aircraft for proper training. While the airlines have larger aircraft with well-established training facilities set up by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), the same is not true for business aircraft which are small and held in small numbers by Indian entities. Cabin crew skills are also critical as they are not just for courtesies extended to passengers but also for cabin safety, especially under emergency conditions.

Under Skill India, the NSDC has set up an Aerospace and Aviation Sector Skill Council (AASSC) which is expected to work as the apex body for skill development in the rapidly developing aviation sector. Its promoters are HAL, the Bangalore Chamber of Industries and Commerce (BCIC) and the Society of Indian Aerospace Technologies & Industries (SIATI). These are the fruits of labour of the aviation industry stalwarts.

Aviation Industry

The Indian MRO market is currently estimated to be around $800 million and is growing at about eight per cent annually against a four per cent world average. The Indian MRO Market has just begun to grow. Indian aerospace industry today is on the threshold of entering into a new era with self-reliance in defence production. The Indian manufacturing sector is internationally competitive with international quality standards, efficiency and manufacturing facilities. Indian government is promoting domestic manufacturing of aircraft and aircraft financing and leasing activities to make India’s aviation market self-reliant. The aircraft leasing and financing businesses are now operated from the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) that provides the world-class financial centre in India.

The IAF has fully supported indigenisation and setting up of MRO facilities over the last 75 years. The highest MRO revenue comes from defence aircraft and a close second from commercial aircraft MRO. The revenue generated from Engine Overhaul is the highest for civil sector. India GMR facility at Hyderabad will be Safrans a overhaul outside of France with a capacity to service 300 engine by 2035. Convergence between Civil MROs and the Defence sector should now create economies of scale and long-term benefits, which the government needs to always factor in its policy-making & reforms for the A&D Sector, including MRO/Manufacturing.

The military MRO is primarily based on Base Repair Depots (BRDs) and the associated eco system of local vendors. The closed-door policy adopted by HAL till now did not open the MRO possibilities with the civil sector and no third-party MRO for these aircraft have emerged. It is only recently that HAL has started outsourcing some airframe structures of the Su-30 and Tejas aircraft to Indian private entities. A beginning of collaboration which needs to find more avenues in the long run. With HAL now moving to become an integrator of outsourced manufacture it will be only