Air Marshal Barbora for Framing National Technology Plan for Aeronautics
From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Apr 10: Air Marshal P K Barbora, Vice Chief of Staff of Indian Air Force, has called for framing a National Technology Plan for Aeronautics to ensure balanced development of the industry to meet the growing challenges.
He was delivering the Neelakantan Memorial Lecture at a national convention on the Frontiers of Aeronautical Technologies organised by the Aeronautical Society of India in Bangalore on Saturday.
Development of indigenous capability with active participation and collaboration by the private and public sector companies to promote the industry and give a boost to increasing the country’s export of defence-related equipment was necessary if India was to effectively compete in the international market and also benefit from new technological developments through constant research and development.
Air Marshal Barbora felt India has achieved commendable progress in aeronautics but missed out on mid-level technologies.
"The progress in indigenisation of aircraft has been far from satisfactory,” he said pointing out that while the central public sector undertaking, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), manufactured parts of aircraft, Chinese companies produce the whole aircraft.
"This is the challenge facing the capital-intensive aeronautical industry,” he said observing that IAF buys billions of dollars of equipment every year which could easily have been produced indigenously saving precious foreign exchange besides giving a fillip to the growth of the domestic industry.
Air Marshal Barbora said the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) has taken a long time coming which was rather unfortunate. The recent acquisition of a large number of aircraft by National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL) from Boeing and Aerospace was another sore point.
"We could have used this large order as a lever to bargain for better terms for technology
transfer as China does. Why cannot we do reverse engineering as some of our neighbours do?,” he asked.
Dr Vijay Mallya, Chairman of United Breweries Group that runs Kingfisher Airlines and President of Aeronautical Society of India, advocated constitution of a National Aeronautics Commission to oversee the activities in the aeronautics industry in the country.
The proposed commission, if established, can be tasked to integrate activities that are now in the domain of various ministries and departments and ensure effective coordination under a single central command, he said pointing out that the proposal submitted to the Centre was yet to be implemented.
He urged the government to support private initiatives in Airline Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) activities as several airlines were going to international centres to conduct the
MRO tests. ``We need to develop and become self-reliant if the Indian airline industry had be competitive,’’ he said.
The Kingfisher Airlines Chairman felt the government and private sector must partner each other not only in creating civil aviation infrastructure but also to address critical issues such as high taxation, input costs and regulations faced by the industry.
Dr Mallya said domestic aviation industry, which suffered a slump in the wake of the global economic slowdown, has been witnessing a revival with 20 % increase in air passenger traffic which was quite significant. The civil aviation industry, which was impacted to a great extent by the global meltdown in 2008-09, has seen a ``revival and resurgence.”
Dr Mallya favoured establishment of airports on the outskirts of major cities, which can cater to the needs of the cheaper airlines.
Karnataka Governor H R Bhardwaj wanted a regulatory regime for civil aviation needs to be created.
Lamenting that flying clubs in the country had almost become redundant, the Governor stressed the need to revive them and also establish more of them to train pilots domestically.