General aviation can help India be globally differentiated as well as socially inclusive and relevant
It seems to me that in this particular year – 2011 – your Foundation Day carries an added significance. First, because it marks 51 years since you moved to Bangalore in March 1960. 51 years is a good time to look forward and plan for the next 51 years. And secondly because today it is exactly one hundred years and a half years – to the very day – of the beginning of civil aviation in India. It was on 18th February, 1911 that the first civil aviation flight in India took off, carrying mail from Delhi to Nainital. Even at that time, this flight created a global first, because not only was it the first civil aviation flight in India — it was also the world’s first air mail flight, carrying 6,400 letters. ….
But as in any field of human endeavour, it is never enough to look back with satisfaction. I believe that the aerospace industry in India is one of the most exciting businesses in the world. I am outrageously ambitious to see Indian aerospace take its rightful place in the world…To understand the context in which this ambition must play out, let us examine some key trends in the global aerospace industry.
The first trend is the growing demand for aerospace products and services in developing nations. Setting aside the significant projections for India’s defence needs over the next decade, India’s demand for civilian airliners is projected to exceed that of Australia and Japan combined. The “BRIC” nations together need more passenger aircraft than the US, which has historically been the biggest market for such aircraft. So it’s a huge market out there. Can we use our joint expertise to get a part of it?
The second trend deals with the industry that provides those products and services. Gone are the days of the “vertically integrated” aerospace powerhouses. Today there are no “do it all ourselves” monolithic aerospace providers. Instead they have been replaced by a widely distributed network of suppliers and partners. …What can we jointly contribute to this global network?
The third trend is a happy marriage between developing nation’s aspirations to be more than just consumers, and the necessity for the producers to be closer to their key markets. Starting with the need to support their products in new markets, the OEMs of the world increasingly recognise that they must invest significantly in those markets to ensure a fair balance of trade. Current cost structures in developing economies also make it inevitable that the OEMs increase their sourcing from the very countries that want to buy their products. So there is a life and a business beyond offsets — and we should be looking for opportunities in this space.
The fourth trend – one which the Mahindra Group embraces whole-heartedly – is the global realisation that waste and inefficiency are contributing to a rapid deterioration in our quality of life. … Can we work together to create green technologies that are relevant and also outrageously affordable? ...
Consider some numbers. India’s strong economic fundamentals contribute to an annual GDP growth rate of 7 to 8 per cent. With 124 million air passengers in 2010, air travel is growing at a rate of about 12 per cent. Tourism is poised to grow at a rate of 9-10 per cent — all remarkable growth projections indeed. However 70 per cent of our country’s population lives in rural areas with limited access to the best in education, health care and work opportunities. …
So what are the key enablers for these ideas to become reality? I believe there are two primary enablers. One: the way we approach aerospace technology acquisition and two the way we build public-private partnerships.
In technology development, we have historically maintained a strong policy of self-reliance, largely motivated by our strategic defence focus. But we clearly must also acquire new technologies to be globally competitive. In our view, we need to find the middle ground between “home-grown” technologies that are developed in isolation, and “transfer of technology” that carries the flavour of adopting someone else’s existing answers. Our preferred term for this is “technology co-development”, wherein we partner with established entities within and outside India to develop the next new solution.
Why is this important? Let us take the example of general aviation engines. We could adopt the path of licence-manufacture within India of engines developed abroad – what we call “technology transfer” – where the benefits are purely financial (through labour cost arbitrage and avoidance of duties). Or we could choose to indigenously develop a complete engine from first principles (“home-grown”) wherein we are destined to repeat all the mistakes made by established entities over decades — and then develop a complete product support capability for the finished product. Instead of either extreme, in today’s globalised world, it could be far better to embrace the idea of a partnership between established players and our own industrial and research expertise to jointly build upon existing knowledge and infrastructure to develop the next generation of products. This attitude shift would enhance our capability to generate future new technologies, and simultaneously make us integral parts of the global supply chain.
Achieving this level of partnership on the global stage is not a simple exercise. As I said earlier, our research organisations such as CSIR-NAL have develop an excellent research capability building on a strong Indian tradition of science and engineering excellence harking back over centuries. And their partner in commercialising this capability should be the Indian private sector that has grown up and come into its own on the global arena…
In conclusion let me say that you, in this audience are the new aeronauts, the ones who are constantly pushing new frontiers of air and space. So, in a way are we, because we too are constantly pushing the frontiers of business and growth. But we modern day aeronauts had some distinguished predecessors — the famed Argonauts of Greek mythology. ... They set out on their quest because finding the Golden Fleece was an impossible task that Jason had to fulfill in order to claim the throne that was rightfully his. And how did they do it? They did it by combining their strengths, by pulling together, by focusing passionately on the greater goal. We too have a throne to claim — a place for India in the global aerospace firmament. For us too, this is a task that may be as tough as finding the Golden Fleece. … I believe that we too can set forth together, like the Argonauts of old, and I hope that 50 years later, at your foundation day in 2061 we will be able to look back and say — we set out on a joint quest to put India on the global aerospace map, and we fulfilled it successfully.
Exclusive excerpts from a speech delivered in Bangalore on August 18. The complete speech can be read at: https://www.business-standard.com/446365/
