‘India must speed up drone technology development’

HYDERABAD: In the wake of the Ukraine-Russia war, India will have to accelerate the pace of development of drone technology in the country because drones will play a key role in any future wars, a top government official said on Thursday.
“First Azerbaijan and then now Ukraine have been a great eye opener. When we fight the next war, whenever that happens, we will have to fight our own war and nobody in this world is going to fight for us, and that next war will be decided by drones,” said Amber Dubey, joint secretary, ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) during a panel discussion on ‘Making India a global drone hub by 2030: Issues & way forward’ on the opening day of Wings India 2022.
He pointed out that by 2030, Indian drone players must try to capture 95% of the domestic market and 20-25% of the global market.
“For our own stupidity, we are 40-50 years behind the mighty Americans & Europeans and 20-25 years behind the Chinese and the gap is only increasing… that has to be covered as soon as possible…,” he said, adding that the Centre has initiated certain reforms and initiatives such as PLI (production linked incentive) scheme to boost the industry’s growth.
Smit Shah, president, Drone Federation of India, pointed out that while the Centre has initiated many reforms and guidelines to boost the drone industry, the government needs to work with all the industry stakeholders to grow the market and focus on ‘Design in India’ along with ‘Make in India’ to create intellectual property in the country.
Vipul Singh, co-founder & CEO, Aarav Unmanned Systems, pointed out that in order to become a drone hub, Indian will have to reduce dependency on foreign OEMs and try to capture higher domestic market share and then gradually cater to international markets.