NEW DELHI: The government informed Parliament that it has set-up two task forces to prepare a roadmap for manufacturing aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles in India. Commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu said this will also create jobs in the country.

Responding to a question, Prabhu said that aviation has become a fast growing sector in the country, which may lead to large scale procurement of aircraft in coming years.

With the aim to encourage the aviation industry, two task forces have been constituted- one to explore the possibility of manufacturing aircraft and the other on manufacturing of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) in India, he said during Question Hour.

There is a huge need for trained manpower in this sector at all levels- safety, operations, ground handling and many other things, he said, adding that government has prepared a policy to find out how many people can be absorbed in the sector.

The minister added India’s aviation sector is expanding by 20 per cent and that government will have to buy more than 1,000 planes in the future.

Replying on a question on some countries trying to “dump” their products in India, the minister said the government has been conscious to any such situation and takes immediate action whenever necessary like adopting anti-dumping policy to protect the domestic industry.

He cited the example of steel industry where the government took an initiative to protect the domestic sector against the import of the metal from China.

Referring to the shortage of skill workers in the country, Prabhu said to meet the skill requirement, the government has formulated the national policy on skill development and entrepreneurship in 2015 with the objective to meet the challenge of skilling at scale with speed and standard.

“In addition to laying down the objectives and expected outcomes, the effort is also to identify the various institutional frameworks which act as a vehicle to reach expected outcomes,” he said.

