BENGALURU:State-owned aerospace and defence major Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has decided to pursue its civil aircraft development programme despite the lack of success in the project.

HAL plans to put a civil aircraft in the Indian skies by 2022. Even though the company has supplied over 14 Dornier (Do228) and 22 Avro (HS748) to civil customers over the years, their regional transport aircraft plan has not had any major progress.

“The civil aviation business in India indicates emerging requirements for 19-seat, 30-seat, 50-seat and 70-seat aircraft as the traffic grows on regional routes. The company has the strategy to address not only the requirements of this emerging market but also the MRO (maintenance repair and overhaul) opportunities offered by trunk route operators,” RK Tyagi, former chairman and managing director of HAL had earlier told Express.

Though the company aspires to lead the ‘Make in India’ call by the Prime Minister, significant delays in various projects, including the over 30-year old Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) project, are hampering its progress.

The company says that the design is already on ‘drawing board’ stage but failure of the Kaveri engine has increased its dependence on procuring an engine from a global Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).

Officials said that this is being done to ensure that the aircraft is globally competitive in terms of cost per passenger kilometer.

National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) is the other public sector agency HAL is working with for the civil aircraft programme. The initial funding of the project was Rs 20 crore (Rs 10 crore each). The two units also want to partner with private sector in various stages of development. But undue delays may not interest private players who have to sustain their businesses based on these partnerships.

In the year 2000, India had only 225 aircraft but currently has over 1,100 aircraft (both scheduled and non scheduled), according to aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Aircraft major Airbus says that India needs over 1,000 aircraft in the next 20 years. Though HAL seems to have (for the moment) missed out billions of dollars of opportunities, the company could turn into a major player if it can get its act together at the earliest.