📰 Invasive tree spreading in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve
•An invasive species, Senna spectabilis, an exotic tree, has taken over between 800 hectares and 1,200 hectares of the buffer zones of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) in the picturesque Nilgiris hill district. The Forest Department is coming up with a comprehensive strategy to tackle the invasive species, which continues to spread rapidly in the buffer zone.
•Introduced as an ornamental species and for use as firewood from South and Central America, the species has become highly invasive in the Sigur plateau in both the core and buffer zones of the MTR.
Native species hit
•Over the last few years, its bright yellow flowers have become more visible across the Tiger Reserve. Conservationists say the invasive weed has a negative effect on local biodiversity, crowding out native species and limiting food availability for wildlife.
•According to P. Arunkumar, Deputy Director, MTR (Buffer Zone), the Forest Department estimates that the species has spread over 800-1,200 hectares of the buffer zone.
•Local residents said the species seemed to be spreading faster over the last five years. The Forest Department is still demarcating areas where the species is spreading. According to officials, policy-level discussions are under way on Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited (TNPL) plan to use wood from Senna spectabilis from the MTR for paper-making. They said the funds so raised would be used in eco-restoration to bring back native species.
•Mr. Arunkumar said the Forest Department was also formulating a 10-year-plan to systematically remove Lantana camara, the other major weed that poses a threat to biodiversity in both the core and buffer zones of the Tiger Reserve.
•Senna spectabilis, along with Lantana camara, is among five major invasive weeds that had taken over vast swathes of the Nilgiris, with wattle being the other major invasive species. Eucalyptus and pine, though exotic, do not spread as quickly as the other species and are considered easier to manage, Forest Department officials said.
•Officials also stated that the Madras High Court was hearing petitions seeking the removal of exotic species, and that judges had inspected the Tiger Reserve this year to monitor the work in this regard.
📰 8,416 public grievances addressed as part of special drive, says Health Ministry
•As part of the Special Campaign 2.0 for Disposal of Pending Matters (SCDPM) and Swachhata Drive organised by the Department of Health and Family Welfare, 21,600 files were reviewed, 8,416 public grievances and their appeals redressed, and over 1,100 cleanliness campaigns conducted, the Health Ministry said in a release on Tuesday.
•Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said the objectives of these campaigns were to minimise pendency, institutionalise swachhata, strengthen internal monitoring mechanisms, train officers in records management, digitise physical records for improved records management and bring all Ministries/departments on one single digital platform.
•The SCDPM and the Swachhata Drive was launched on October 1 and implemented from October 2 to 31.
Third-party evaluation
•Third party evaluations will take place from November 14 to 30, which will be followed by presentations on best practices to mark Good Governance Day on December 24 and 25, the Ministry added. Monthly progress of the campaign is being reviewed by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances. The Ministry also said that ₹4,06,315 had been generated by selling scrap.
•Several institutes have adopted best practices to enhance swachhata and provide a clean and green environment on their campuses, the Health Ministry said.
•The National Institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases (NITRD), New Delhi, has installed Watergen, an innovative technology that converts moisture in the air to potable water. The AIIMS, Bibinagar, Telangana has developed an Ayush herbal plantation. Sensitisation programmes on hygiene were organised by the Indian Council of Medical Research in schools in Delhi.
📰 At SCO meet, Jaishankar targets BRI
India stayed out of the joint communique reference to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, while all other member states affirmed support for it
•Connectivity projects must respect sovereignty issues, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said, in a reference to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), at a virtual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of Government hosted by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday.
•Dr. Jaishankar pitched for more trade through Iran’s Chabahar port and the International North South Transport Corridors that India is a part of, aiming to improve bilateral trade with Central Asian countries. A communique issued after the meeting named all countries, other than India, and said they “reaffirmed their support for the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative”, “including the work to promote the alignment of the ‘Belt and Road’ construction with the construction of the Eurasian Economic Union”.
•“Our total trade with SCO Members is only $141 billion, which has potential to increase manifold. Fair market access is to our mutual benefit and only way to move forward,” Dr. Jaishankar said at the meet which included Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, and the Prime Ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The bulk of India’s trade with SCO countries is with China, which crossed $100 billion this year.
•In a series of tweets outlining his speech, Dr. Jaishankar took aim at China’s BRI saying, “Connectivity projects should respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states and respect international law.” India has refused to join the BRI, comprising a series of infrastructure projects that pass through Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia, and has been developing and promoting the Shahid Beheshti terminal at Chabahar and the link through the INSTC as an alternative to both the BRI and to transit trade through Pakistan.
•“[I] underlined that we need better connectivity in the SCO region built on centrality of interests of Central Asian states. [This] will unlock the economic potential of this region in which Chabahar port and the International North South Transport Corridor could become enablers,” Dr. Jaishankar tweeted.
•Without referring directly to the Ukraine war, and Russia’s decision to halt the grain initiative, Dr. Jaishankar said that India will “foster greater cooperation with SCO member states on countering the food crisis”, particularly with millets. In the SCO joint communique, all countries also criticised the “imposition of unilateral economic sanctions not endorsed by the UN Security Council”, and said the sanctions “adversely affect” the global economy, without naming U.S. and European Union sanctions on Russia.
📰 This year, saffron fields to spice up tourists’ reel life in Kashmir
The tourism department had invited students and local farmers to join the saffron festival organised in Ladoo area on Tuesday to highlight the whole process of saffron cultivation
•Wearing traditional attires and enacting 16th century Kashmiri poetess and queen Habba Khatoon, students from south Kashmir’s Pampore on Tuesday put the spotlight on the ongoing saffron harvest to attract tourists for social media reels and unique experiences amidst the elevated table-land known for one of the costliest spices in the country.
•“These karewas (elevated table land) are home to Habba Khatoon. I am wearing the traditional attire to imitate our queen. Saffron has not only been a crop of Kashmir but also a source of poetry. We hope tourists will come here and enjoy the harvest season,” Zeenat, a student from the Degree College Pampore, said.
•The Kashmir tourism department had invited students and local farmers to join the saffron festival organised in Pampore’s Ladoo area on Tuesday to highlight the whole process of saffron cultivation. Traditional songs, sung in chorus while picking these flowers, were also played on the occasion.
Family business
•These days rows of purple flowers of saffron, a spice widely used across the country, dot the vast undulated highlands of Pampore. There is a festive look with hundreds of family members joining hands to pick the flowers and separate the petals from stigmas, thread-like parts. Around 30,000 families living in 226 villages, about 90% of them in Pampore, in J&K are associated with the spice business.
•“We started to collect the saffron flowers early in the morning. It will be followed by separation of petals and sticks. Thereby, we are sundrying it till the stigmas attain a particular shape,” Ibrahim Nabi, a lawyer by profession, said. He is joined by his sister who is a student, and his mother, a house-wife, to pick the flowers, like hundreds of other landowners in Pampore.
•For the tourism department, the sight of purple saffron fields could add to the list of spots visited by potential tourists, with Kashmir already hosting the highest 22 lakh tourists this year.
•“Pampore will add to the experience of tourists travelling to Kashmir. Pampore could be a major stopover for tourists to have a visual treat of saffron fields. This could be a major spot where tourists could shoot their fun-filled reels for their social media accounts, as is the trend with tourists these days,” Kashmir tourism director Faz-lul-Haseeb told The Hindu.
•After facing moisture stress, disease-ridden saffron corms, nutrient depletion and delayed stigma separation in the past, there is hope this year that the yield is likely to see a 15% increase compared to last year, according to the agriculture department.
•Saffron production was dwindling and the area under saffron cultivation declined from about 5707 hectares to 3715 hectares in the past. Productivity had equally declined from an average of 3.13 kg per hectare to 1.88 kg by 2010, the agriculture department figures suggested.
•Saffron is one of the world’s most costly spices by weight. Around 75,000 saffron blossoms produce a single pound of saffron spice and the cost varies between ₹2 and ₹3 lakh per kilogram.
Ensuring better quality
•Despite the high rate, Kashmir saffron producers have a reason to smile this year. “The India International Kashmir Trade Centre (IIKTC), Pampore, is monitoring the procurement of 45 kgs of fresh saffron flowers by Tata Consumers Product Limited this year,” Chowdhary Mohammad Iqbal, Director Agriculture, Kashmir said.
•“The adoption of latest technologies will not only increase the production but will also ensure better quality. The GI (geographical indication) tagging of saffron has increased its importance. Online marketing facilities have made it easy for buyers and sellers to trade with a wide range of market options available,” Mr. Iqbal said.
•Besides the profit, it seems the world-famous saffron is all set to spice up the stay of tourists, keen to have reels while travelling, in Kashmir too.
📰 The truth about ‘the India story’
•As the COVID-19 pandemic fades and hopes rise for nations and societies to return to some kind of normalcy, there is effort all around to take stock of where we stand and what our prospects look like. It is in this spirit that I want to look back over the last few years at how India performed in terms of its economy.
•These are polarising times and one hears some arguing that the Indian economy is doing dismally, and others chanting that it is a blazing success. The truth lies somewhere in between. It is true that the Indian rupee has been doing very poorly (especially in comparison to the stated target of our political leaders to strengthen it) and inflation, at 7.41%, is high, but these are global problems. Virtually all currencies are losing out against the U.S. dollar, and inflation right now is a global phenomenon.
•Where India is doing especially poorly is in employment generation. India’s unemployment rate is high. In October, it stood at 7.8%. However, what is really worrying is youth unemployment. According to International Labour Organization (ILO) data, collated and presented by the World Bank, India’s youth unemployment, that is, from among people aged 15 to 24 years who are looking for work, the percent that does not find any, stands at 28.3%. This places India in the cluster of troubled West Asian nations such as Iran (27.2%), Egypt (24.3%) and Syria (26.2%), and in a much worse state than most Asian countries such as Indonesia (16%), Malaysia (15.6%), and Bangladesh (14.7%).
The growth story is mixed
•India’s growth story is more mixed. In 2021-22, its GDP growth was 8.7%, which was among the highest in the world. This is good but, against this, we must offset the fact that much of this is the growth of climbing out of the pit into which we had fallen the previous year. In 2020-21, India’s growth was minus 6.6%, which placed the country in the bottom half of the global growth chart. For 2022-23, the International Monetary Fund has cut India’s growth forecast to 6.1%. There are two special worries related to this. First, given that most of India’s growth is occurring at the top end, with a few corporations raking in a disproportionate share of profits, and unemployment is so high, it is likely that large segments of the population are actually witnessing negative growth. The second worry is not so much about India’s dropping rank in the world, as about how India’s performance has been sliding compared to its own past performance.
•The short story of India’s growth is the following. After sluggish growth for about four decades after Independence, India’s growth picked up in the early 1990s, following the reform of 1991-93. From 2003, it rose again, and India joined the ranks of the Asian super performers. From 2005 to 2008, it was being acclaimed globally for being on top of most charts. For three consecutive years, India grew at, respectively, 9.3%, 9.2% and 10.2%.
•It must be pointed out that in recent years, the official Indian estimates for these years have been revised downwards. The latest Economic Survey has cut these growth rates to 7.9%, 8.0%, 8.0%. But, even with that, India stood out. In fact, from 2003 to 2011, barring one year, the start of the Great Recession in 2008-09, India was on top of most global rankings in terms of growth performance.
•What makes the current situation dire is not that India grew slower than a majority of nations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those were troubled times, and nations were often, understandably, caught on the wrong foot.
•What makes India’s growth story worrying is that the slowdown began much before the COVID-19 pandemic. It began in 2016, after which, for four consecutive years, the growth rate each year was lower than in the previous year. Growth in 2016-17 was 8.3%. After that it was, respectively, 6.9%, 6.6%, 4.8%, and minus 6.6%. This downward spiral stretching over four years has never happened before in India since its independence in 1947.
•Why is this happening? If we look at India’s policy interventions over the last six or seven years, there have been good and bad moves. India needed to make it easier for bankrupt firms to close down and move on. Without this, business was sluggish. Hence, it was good to see the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code the nation adopted in 2016. On the other hand, the demonetisation of 2016 was a big mistake. Much has been written about this. Let me not expend more time on it.
India’s investment rate
•I want to instead turn to one reason behind India’s poor growth performance over the last six years that has been largely overlooked. We know from textbook economics models that one of the most important drivers of growth is the investment rate, that is, the fraction of the national income that is spent on investment — roads, bridges, factories, even human capital. For long years, India used to have a low investment rate, and, in keeping with textbook economics, India had slow growth.
•Then the investment rate began a slow rise and crossed the 30% mark for the first time in 2004-05. By 2007-08, it had reached 39.1%. India was, for the first time, looking like an East Asian super-performer; and it was growing faster than the super performers. The investment rate remained just short of 40% for six years and then began to fall. By 2019-20, it had fallen to 32.2%.
•No one fully understands what determines the investment rate. It has many drivers. Monetary policy matters, as does fiscal policy. In addition, how much people invest depends on social and political factors.
•It is arguable that trust is a major driver of investment. As the level of trust erodes in a society, investment tends to fall.
•We will need more research to know what is causing India’s investment rate to fall. However, given the rise of political polarisation and the policy of divide and rule, it is likely that societal trust is eroding and this is reducing the investment rate. In turn, the falling investment rate is adversely impacting growth and hurting job creation.
Needed, a policy refocus
•Given India’s strong fundamentals and abundance of talent, there is no reason why such a vast expanse of the economy should be languishing, with so many people witnessing a contraction in their incomes. We do need to shift the policy focus from a few rich corporations to the larger segments of population — small businesses, farmers and ordinary labourers. There is a need for fiscal policy interventions to transfer income from the super-rich to these segments. There is ample space for this since inequality in India has risen disproportionately over the last few years. Finally, even though a divided society is easier to rule, we have to pull back from this and create an ethos of inclusion and trust, the erosion of which is slowing down investment and adversely impacting job creation and growth.
📰 The weakest link in the air pollution fight
•In the fight against air pollution in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, there are several important protagonists, none more so than India’s frontline environmental regulators, the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs), and the Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) in the Union Territories. Their primary role is to regulate emissions from point sources such as industries and power plants that contribute substantially to ambient air pollution in urban and rural areas. More recently, they have also been tasked with guiding cities in meeting targets under the National Clean Air Programme and spending Finance Commission grants for air quality improvements. In short, there is no future with clean air in which the SPCBs do not perform at the highest level possible.
An enhanced mandate
•The SPCBs were initially constituted under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. Under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, the SPCB mandate was expanded to include air quality management. Subsequently, several new environmental regulations added to their roles and functions. Unfortunately, this enhanced mandate has not been matched with increased capacity and capability in the Boards. As environmental indicators such as air quality and water quality worsen in many parts of the country, the Boards are evidently failing to effectively discharge their statutory mandate.
•Over the years, several reports that have been published, including those by the parliamentary standing committee and government committees, have identified reasons for the poor performance of the SPCBs. In a recently published series of papers by the Centre for Policy Research, we find that many of these reasons continue to afflict the SPCBs. This article unpacks three key institutional constraints under which SPCBs in the Indo-Gangetic Plain function, and discusses their implications on air quality governance in India.
Board composition as conflict of interest
•First, the composition of SPCBs is a matter of serious concern as important stakeholders and those with crucial expertise are missing in most States. Boards are multi-member bodies headed by a chairperson and a member-secretary. Their decisions and policies guide the day-to-day functioning of the organisation. Over 50% of the Board members across the 10 SPCBs and PCC studied represent potential polluters: local authorities, industries, and public sector corporations. They are subject to the SPCB’s regulatory measures, and their overwhelming presence raises fundamental questions around conflicts of interest.
•At the same time, scientists, medical practitioners, and academics constitute only 7% of the Board members. What is even more worrying is that most Boards do not meet the statutory requirement of having at least two Board members who have knowledge of, and experience in, air quality management. Given the scale and causes of air pollution in India, multi-disciplinary expertise is needed to tackle it; there must also be an explicit focus on health while designing air pollution policy. The lack of expertise and skewed representation of stakeholders on the Boards can only be a hindrance to effective policy making.
•Second, the SPCB leadership — the chairperson and the member secretary — do not enjoy a long, stable, and full-time tenure. In many States, persons in these two posts hold an additional charge in other government departments. Data also show that several chairpersons and member secretaries have held their posts for less than a year. For example, the shortest tenure for a chairperson has been 18 days (Chhattisgarh) and 15 days for a member secretary (Haryana and Uttar Pradesh). With the focus of the leadership of SPCB spread thin across multiple roles and their tenures being short, often they do not even have the time to understand their mandate fully before they are moved out. In such a scenario, long-term policy planning, strategic interventions and effective execution aimed at reducing air pollution substantially are extremely difficult.
Staff running on empty
•Third, the SPCBs are critically under-staffed. At least 40% of all sanctioned posts are vacant across nine SPCBs/PCCs for which there is data. Vacancy levels in technical positions are as high as 84% in Jharkhand, and over 75% in Bihar and Haryana. An inadequate staff strength forces the Boards to recast their priorities among their various functions. This has significant implications on pollution regulation as vital functions such as monitoring industrial compliance, initiating enforcement actions in case of violations, and standard setting are often not prioritised. Less staff strength also means weaker regulatory scrutiny and poor impact assessment. For example, given their workload, engineers in Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh have less than a day to inspect, evaluate and decide on each consent application. With Board staff running on empty, this is clearly an unsustainable situation.
•The institutional picture we paint is rather bleak. Unfortunately, it gets worse when one considers the massive mandate of the Boards on environmental issues beyond air quality. Without essential capacity, capability, expertise, and vision in our frontline regulators, sustained and substantial gains in air quality are virtually impossible.
How significant is the setting up of the C-295 transport aircraft manufacturing facility in Vadodara to India’s domestic industry? Which are the major companies within India’s growing civil aviation sector? How will the procurement of new aircraft boost the defence manufacturing ecosystem?
•On October 30, Prime Minister Narendra Modi layed the foundation stone for the C-295 transport aircraft manufacturing facility in Vodadara to be set up by Airbus Defence and Space and Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL).
•Indian companies, both public and private, have steadily expanded their footprint in the global supply chains of major defence and aerospace manufacturers supplying a range of components, systems and sub-systems.
•India has a much bigger footprint in civil aviation manufacturing than defence, in addition to being a market itself. Both Airbus and Boeing do significant sourcing from India for their civil programmes.
The story so far:
•On October 30, Prime Minister Narendra Modi layed the foundation stone for the C-295 transport aircraft manufacturing facility in Vadodara to be set up by Airbus Defence and Space and Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL). This is the first time a private sector company would be manufacturing a full aircraft in the country. This is a huge step forward for India in the global aircraft manufacturing domain.
What is the C-295MW transporter?
•The C-295MW is a transport aircraft of 5-10 tonne capacity which will replace the legacy Avro aircraft in the Indian Air Force (IAF) procured in the 1960s. The Request For Proposal (RFP) was issued to global firms in May 2013 and the sole bid by Airbus and TASL was approved by the Defence Acquisition Council in May 2015. On September 24, 2021 the Ministry of Defence (MoD) signed a ₹21,935 crore contract with Airbus Defence and Space for the acquisition of 56 C-295MW aircraft along with associated equipment.
•In the words of N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Sons, with the set-up of the final assembly line in Vadodara, the Tata Group will now be able to take aluminium ingots at one end of the value stream and turn it into an Airbus C-295 aircraft for the IAF.
•Of the 56 aircraft contracted, 16 will come in fly-away condition from Spain between September 2023 and August 2025. The remaining 40 will be manufactured here to be delivered between September 2026 and 2031 at the rate of eight aircraft per year. Nearly 240 engineers will be trained at the Airbus facility in Spain for the project, the MoD said. The C-295 has very good fuel efficiency and can take off and land from short as well as unprepared runways, according to Air Marshal Sandeep Singh, Vice Chief of IAF. The IAF will base its first C-295 squadron in Vadodara by converting the Avro squadron located there, as the fly-away aircraft start coming in, he stated.
•With the procurement of these aircraft, India has become the 35th C-295 operator worldwide. With 285 aircraft ordered and 38 operators in 34 different countries, the aircraft has achieved more than 5,00,000 flight hours. The Navy and the Coast Guard have also expressed interest in the C-295 and it can be used in civilian roles as well as exported in the future. The C-295 is also a potential replacement for the AN-32 aircraft, the workhorse of the IAF with over 100 of them in service. To questions on this Air Marshal Singh said that the AN-32s will be in service upto 2032 and beyond and that they would make a decision on its replacement in five years or so from now.
How will this affect the domestic aircraft manufacturing ecosystem?
•Over the last two decades, Indian companies, both public and private, have steadily expanded their footprint in the global supply chains of major defence and aerospace manufacturers supplying a range of components, systems and sub-systems.
•For instance, Boeing’s sourcing from India stands at $1 billion annually, of which over 60% is in manufacturing, through a growing network of 300+ supplier partners of which over 25% are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME). “Boeing has the broadest and most capable engineering teams in the country with over 3,000 employees, and we’re investing in a 43-acre, $200 million centre of excellence to further grow in the years to come,” a company statement said. Tata in a joint venture (JV) with Boeing, manufactures aero-structures for its AH-64 Apache helicopter, including fuselages, secondary structures, vertical spar boxes fuselages and vertical fin structures for the 737 family of aircraft. It also makes Crown and Tail-cones for Boeing’s CH-47 Chinook helicopters.
•Similarly, Lockheed Martin has joint ventures with TASL in Hyderabad which has manufactured more than 180 empennages for the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft and delivered 157 S-92 helicopter cabins. The latter facility manufactures aerospace components for commercial helicopters and aircraft and has expanded to include aircraft engine components for aerospace industry companies as well. One of the JV’s also began manufacturing complex fighter wings with over 70% of detail parts produced indigenously. The JVs till date have clocked $600 million worth of exports and produced over $200 million in Indian industry revenue.
•The U.S. simplifying its export regulations for India, through a series of measures, has added further impetus to this, experts noted. As U.S. and India pursue the Indo-Pacific strategy, India’s strengths coupled with U.S. and European technology prowess can be a force for good in the world, noted Kriti Upadhyaya, Founder IndUS Tech Council who works closely with companies in both countries.
•The domestic defence manufacturing ecosystem will get a boost with the C-295 project as it will lead to the development of a strong private industrial aerospace ecosystem not only in and around Vadorara but across the country. Bengaluru and Hyderabad already have developed such aerospace and defence domains over the years. The C-295 project is expected to create more than 15,000 skilled direct and indirect jobs across the aerospace ecosystem, with more than 125 suppliers qualified on global quality standards across India. Manufacturing of over 13,400 detail parts, 4,600 sub-assemblies and all the seven major component assemblies will be undertaken in India, along with tools, jigs and testers, Tata said.
Is India’s civil aviation sector growing?
•India has a much bigger footprint in civil aviation manufacturing than defence, in addition to being a major market itself. Both Airbus and Boeing do significant sourcing from India for their civil programmes.
•According to Airbus every commercial aircraft manufactured by them today is partly designed and made in India. “We buy manufactured parts and engineering services worth $650 million every year from more than 45 Indian suppliers”, the company said. Stating that India, which is moving ahead with the mantra of ‘Make in India’ and ‘Make for the Globe’, continues to enhance its potential by becoming a major manufacturer of transport planes, Mr. Modi said, “And I can visualise the day when the world’s biggest passenger planes will also be manufactured in India and will also carry the tag of ‘Make in India’.
•Since 2007, Airbus has had a wholly domestic-owned design centre here which has more than 650 engineers who specialise in high-tech aeronautical engineering and work across both fixed- and rotary-wing Airbus aircraft programmes. Airbus which has design, management and training centres in India, added, “Our centres have the capacity to skill more than 8,000 pilots and 2,000 engineers over the next 10 years with plans for further expansion.”
•Today in India, we have the world’s fastest growing aviation sector and we are about to reach the top three countries in the world in terms of air traffic, Mr. Modi said. “Crores of new passengers are going to be air passengers in the next 4-5 years... It is estimated that in the coming 10-15 years, India will need about 2000 more passenger and cargo aircraft.”
•Another major growing area is Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) for which India can emerge as the regional hub, Ms. Upadhyaya remarked adding, “However, the private defence sector is still nascent and a conducive and stable regulatory and policy environment will be an important enabler.” This moment is akin to the automobile clusters that have emerged in the country turning India into a major exporter of cars to the world. With the right momentum, a realistic roadmap and enabling policy framework, a similar story can be scripted to make the country a hub for aircraft manufacturing.
