Hyderabad is poised to emerge as an aerospace and defence hub, an official of the Telangana government said on Friday.
In the process, all activities, from research and development (R&D) to manufacturing, will be undertaken in Hyderabad, Director-Aerospace and Defence Praveen PA told a roundtable organised by Indo–American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) AP and TS.
The government is having a multi-pronged approach with tie-ups with universities to set up need based education programmes, setting up of centres of excellence and promoting start-ups and related activities, he said. The topic of the discussion was ‘Overcoming challenges in aerospace and defence sectors for sustainable business growth at Hyderabad’.
According to press release on the programme, Mr. Praveen said aerospace, defence, IT and pharma were the thrust areas of the Telangana government. More companies are looking at Hyderabad as it has the people with right skill sets, infrastructure, vendor base and a proactive government. Aerospace and Defence companies are looking at Hyderabad to set up their manufacturing bases, he said. South of Hyderabad city is becoming home to 4-5 strong clusters in these sectors, he said.
Chairman of IACC – AP & TS Shrikant Badiga said the aerospace and defence sectors had taken off smoothly. IACC would coordinate to bring in a good number of American companies to develop a very positive ecosystem and further strengthen it.
The issues covered at the discussions included a need to streamline regulatory certification processes; rationalisation of the tax structure in Engine MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul); addressing the delay in processing of tax rebates by various ministries; startup ecosystem in aviation, aerospace and defence to be created; and strengthening of skill development programmes.
