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The Telangana government is setting up a 1,000-acre aerospace park close to the existing Adibatla aerospace special economic zone, near here. It has also identified land in Warangal and Nizamabad for new aerospace parks as part of its effort to position Telangana as the ideal manufacturing destination.
The state government, in its new industrial policy, has identified the aerospace sector as the core industry and is offering incentives in a bid to compete with Bengaluru, which is acting as the main hub for manufacturing aircraft components and aircraft.
Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) is currently setting up three new facilities in the 250-acre SEZ at Adibatla in alliance with Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin for the manufacture of helicopter cabins, aircraft and its components.
“Our aim is to corner 15-20 per cent of the expected $50-60 billion defence sector aerospace production in the country by 2020,” said Jayesh Ranjan, commissioner for industries, commerce and export promotion, Telangana.
Speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines of the curtain event on the three-day Defence and Aerosupply 2014 meet starting from tomorrow here, K Pradeep Chandra, state special chief secretary, said, “the government was in touch with the domestic private sector defence manufacturers to set up new manufacturing units in the upcoming aerospace parks.”
One among them is Bengaluru-based Mahindra Aerospace Private Limited. The Mahindra Group is currently in the process of evaluating partners to jointly bid for the Indian Air Force's Rs 12,000-crore Avro transport aircraft replacement programme.
TASL has already announced its partnership with Airbus Defence and Space to manufacture and supply C295 transport aircraft to replace the Avro planes.
“If the TASL consortium secures the contract, the partners would likely utilise the Hyderabad facility to produce them,” said Chandra.
The state government has a broad plan to establish a strong small industries supply network to capture the entire value chain within the hub.
More than 300 delegates from 15 countries are expected to participate in the defence 2014 meet. These include from Airbus, Eurocopter, Dassault, Lockheed Martin, UTC, Honeywell, Bell Helicopters and the Israeli Aerospace Manufacturing Federation.
