Energising
Indian
Aerospace
Industry  

India’s reindustrialisation during the past six or seven decades, reversing the trends of the previous two centuries, has already acquired substantive capabilities  and momentum now. Overall economic growth has averaged over 6 percent during the past two decades; and the share of industry in the total gross domestic product (GDP), which has already increased from the paltry figure of around 12 percent in the small quantum that the 1950 GDP represented, to 27 percent of the much larger GDP now, is expected to go up to 35 percent by 2020. This has t be seen in the context of India overtaking the Japanese economy, sooner rather than later, and becoming the third largest economy in the world on PPP (purchasing power parity) basis, after the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

India has one of the world’s largest pools o skilled manpower. Its 272 universities and 13,20 higher education institution produce an average of 4,000 doctorates, 35,000 post-graduates, and 2.46, million graduates every year. The country produces 300,000 engineers, and nearly 150,000 information technology professionals ever year. In addition, India has a large number of students studying abroad, constituting the highest number of foreign students (80,000) in the USA alone. At the same time, the country (with 1,500 facilities) has rapidly become the centre R&D for global companies because of its skilled manpower. At the end of 2004, over 130 multinational companies, including 100 fortune 500 companies (e.g., GE, Bell Labs, Du Pont, Daimler-Intel, Texas Instruments, Microsoft,  HP, IBM, etc.) had set up R&D facilities in India during the past five years. India’s infrastructure in the area of aerospace industry is well developed even if inadequate for the future.

Private industry in India has moved well beyond its traditional position of small-medium scale industry to large scale modern manufacturing sectors in diverse areas, and is now capable of partnership with the best in tersmof technology, management and productivity…

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About the Editor

Air Commodore (Retd) Jasjit Singh is a distinguished former fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force decorated for gallantry in war and distinguished service. Author and editor of three dozen books, he headed India's premier think-tank, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses for fourteen years. He is a visit­ing lecturer at defence and war colleges in India and abroad and currently, the Director, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi.