IT and Industries Minister K.T. Rama Rao on Friday urged the Defence Ministry to consider setting up a defence incubator in Hyderabad on the lines of the T-Hub to encourage entrepreneurs and help in indegenisation of critical defence equipment and parts.
Mr. Rao told an audience comprising in-service and retired Indian Air Force (IAF) officers, defence scientists, industrialists, and the Advisor to the union Defence Minister, G. Satheesh Reddy, that the former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had evinced interest in starting such an exclusive defence technology incubator after visiting the T-Hub – the biggest technology incubation centre in the country.
The Minister was speaking at the first ever IAF-Industry seminar for indigenisation of military avionics, creating capabilities with MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises). Urging Dr. Reddy to take up the initiative, he said the TS government was ready to cooperate.Hyderabad was already a hub in defence production with several public sector production units, labs, etc., which meant an ecosystem already existed, which could be leveraged for the proposed incubator.
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Calling for a synergy between research labs and industry, Mr. Rao said, with five air strips and three aerospace parks, it was well positioned to encourage entrepreneurship.
Top global companies had set up shop directly or were collaborating with private firms here for making critical equipment like helicopter fuselages, avionics, aircraft parts, missile technology, to name a few.
Firms here included Pratt Whitney, Boeing, Sikrosky and Lockheed Martin, while the Scorpene submarines built with French technology was also sourcing its parts from here.
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The Minister claimed that the TS-iPass, a new industrial policy of fast track clearances, was giving dividends with 4,000 proposals approved, attracting an investment of ₹70,000 crore and a job potential of two lakh.
Earlier, Dr. Satheesh Reddy asked the armed forces and the defence PSUs to develop a website indicating the projects areas where they wanted the private sector to collaborate. “There has to be hand holding from the PSUs for the industry and the latter should also invest in research,” he said.
Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) has a ₹20,000 crore order for Akash missle and 85% contribution comes from the industry. “Scenario has changed but we are still importing a lot of and equipment”.
He said it was necessary to decide what could be indigenised and what had to be imported considering the costs involved.
“With Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) we have identified 68 parts for Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) which could be outsourced and done successfully,” he said and stressed on “dedicated, mission mode approach towards indigenisation”.
Air Marshal (Maintenance) Sanjay Sharma also spoke.