Hyderabad: Telangana is making efforts to develop a strong ecosystem for aerospace and defence sectors. With several multinationals and domestic companies setting up manufacturing facilities to make key aerospace and defence components, aerostructures and systems, the State is also creating the needed platform for startups, incubators to evolve in this space.

Praveen P A, director-Aerospace and Defence, Government of Telangana, told Telangana Today, “The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is keen to associate with incubators such as T-Hub to launch IDEX (Innovations for Defence Excellence) Defence incubators. We have discussed on the progressive policies, institutional initiatives, quality manpower and strong aerospace and defence ecosystem that exists in Telangana which is attracting large scale investments in these sectors. Global companies such as GE are looking at doubling their supplier base in India, and Hyderabad has an advantage here. Some companies have already begun talks with the small and medium enterprises in Telangana for joint ventures and partnerships. ”

“The mature aerospace and defence hub in Hyderabad can play a key role in centrally linking and supporting the new defence corridors announced in North and South India. IDEX can stand to leverage the strong startup ecosystem, defence public sector units (DPSUs) and defence R&D institutions in the city to fast track innovation and indegenisation of defence technologies,” he added.

Earlier, the Prime Minister had launched IDEX, a portal for startups to deal with the defence production department. The Innovation for Defence Excellence scheme will set up defence innovation hubs throughout the country to provide necessary incubation and infrastructure support to the startups in defence sector. While the first incubator has been planned in

Coimbatore, Hyderabad is a top priority city for such innovation hub as it has defence public sector establishments, T-Hub and professional academic institutions such as Indian School of Business and NALSAR. It makes a logical sense to have a defence incubator here and it will benefit all the stakeholders.

So far, public sector units (PSUs) such as Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) have been roped in as lead/anchor companies to facilitate establishment of the defence incubators. So defence PSUs based out of Hyderabad could also play a key role in the overall initiative, he informed.

Telangana Industries Minister K T Rama Rao has also requested Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the past to consider Hyderabad for setting up a defence incubator.

Praveen said, there is a growing interest among foreign original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to work with local companies. The Defence Procurement Policy opens up several opportunities for companies operating in this space.

Companies from across the world are looking at opportunities to set up production facilities both individually and in joint venture route. A French delegation representing 62 aerospace and defence companies, has visited Hyderabad on Thursday to familiarise with the aerospace and defence ecosystem of Telangana.

On Wednesday, TATA Lockheed Martin Aerostructures Limited, inaugurated India’s first metal to metal bonding facility at Adibatla besides capabilities to make parts for C-130J aircraft in the plant, which otherwise was imported from other countries until now.