Civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday said it is time for India to look at manufacturing of aerospace products in the country.
“It is time to look at manufacturing aerospace products within India. Time is ripe for manufacturing to take off in India,” he said while speaking at a summit organised by CAPA India on Monday.
He also stressed on the need to increase the ecosystem of Indian civil aviation.
“India’s civil aviation sector is seeing sustained robust demand, having seen an almost V-shaped recovery from an all-time low during the pandemic,” he said.
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He said that India currently has a fleet size of 700 aircraft and in the next five to seven years, domestic airlines are together projected to have a fleet of around 2,000 aircraft.
He said there is a need to increase human resources in the country.
“Hence, the government has strengthened institutes like the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA), DGCA and air traffic controllers (ATCOs) by ten and 400 personnel respectively.”
Scindia said the government has increased ATCOs to around 3,600 personnel and is set to see another 500 ATCOs by August this year.
The minister also said the domestic aviation sector is seeing new highs in almost all parameters, particularly passenger traffic, with the latest record being around 4.56 lakh passengers on a daily basis.
India continues to see a daily passenger traffic of 4.2-4.4 lakh and the next high season starting in October could break previous records, Scindia added.
According to CAPA India projections, the country’s domestic passenger traffic is likely to rise to 16 crore in the 2023-24 fiscal year from an estimated 13.75 crore for the current fiscal.
By 2029-30, India’s domestic passenger traffic is likely to touch 35 crore.
As many as 15 Flying Training Organisations (FTOs) are expected to be set up by the end of this year, taking the total number of FTOs to 50. Currently, there are 35 FTOs, Scindia added.
