Galvanising aerospace

Infrastructure, skilling, access to funds - these fundamentals need to be fixed first for India to achieve its aerospace targets

Addressing an industry gathering in New Delhi last Saturday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh recited a series of targets from the Defence Production Policy of 2018. He urged the private sector to boost annual defence production to $26 billion by 2025, which would allow overall manufacturing to rise to $1 trillion that year and facilitate the government’s vision of making India a $5 trillion economy by 2024. Mr Singh also laid down an ambitious new target, stating that the government aimed to double the size of the aeronautics industry from Rs 30,000 crore to Rs 60,000 crore by 2024, through measures