Infotech Enterprises Limited, a Hyderabad-based technology solutions provider offering engineering and geographic information (GI) services, on Wednesday signed an MoU with the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Kakinada (JNTUK) to create the curriculum of MTech in avionics (or aviation electronics).
Speaking to mediapersons after the MoU-signing ceremony, Infotech chairman and managing director BVR Mohan Reddy, an alumni of JNTUK, said around $500 million worth of software to the aerospace industry was exported from India last year, of which a little over $100 million was from Infotech.
“There is an extensive usage of electronics for all controls in a cockpit and there is a necessity for more avionics engineers. India produces 700,000 engineers a year. However, the question is how many of them are readily employable by the industry. If we want to get the right set of people, we need to collaborate with the academia further to get industry-ready people,” he said, elaborating on the rationale behind the agreement with JNTUK.
Under the MoU, Reddy said, JNTUK will provide the infrastructure and the right students, while Infotech will work with the faculty of the university, putting the appropriate courseware and supplementing the faculty with its managers to conduct special technical lectures, besides offering the students a summer internship at Infotech's campuses.
“Around Rs 50 lakh has been budgeted by JNTUK for setting up a lab, while our budget is somewhere in the range of Rs 6 crore to Rs 7 crore a year for training engineers,” he said, adding the company saw a lot of potential in nurturing the quality engineering talent in Tier-II cities like Kakinada.
Infotech, which has 8,780 employees on its rolls globally, has recently laid the foundation stone for its new facility at the IT special economic zone (SEZ) in Kakinada. About 2,500 employees work for its aerospace practice globally, of which 500 people are engaged in avionics.
Speaking on the occasion, JNTUK vice-chancellor Allam Appa Rao said the new MTech course in aviation, which will be commenced from this academic year, will have a student intake of 25, and the varsity will go for two batches if there is more demand. “We are currently working on the fee structure.”
“While going in for campus recruitments, we will be giving the first priority to the MTech students (avionics) of JNTUK. I don’t see any reason to say no to absorbing all of them (25). Every year, we intake close to 60 people from outside for our avionics division. That way, there is a lot of opportunity. This year, we are looking at a significant growth in avionics and will be adding 150-200 people to our avionics team,” Rajendra Velagapudi, senior vice-president and global delivery head (aerospace operation unit) of Infotech, told Business Standard.
