Ambani, Adani front-runners in race to produce, assemble civ…

The Gautam Adani-led Adani Group and Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd, for long rivals in industries such as energy and D2C (direct-to-consumer) brands, are now gearing up for a pitched battle in the field of civilian drones.

Reliance group firm Jio Platform’s Asteria Aerospace and Adani Defence and Aerospace have expressed their intent to scale up production and assemble drones in the country. Media reports say both the companies, which have established themselves in the manufacture of drones for the defence sector, are keen to foray into the production and assembling of civilian drones.

“We will be expanding in all spheres like original equipment manufacturer (OEM), services and analytics using cloud-based platforms. We aim to be the biggest OEM in India. As of now, we have one manufacturing hub in Bengaluru and will soon have maintenance hubs across India,” Nihar Vartak, co-founder and director of Asteria Aerospace told Times of India. OEM is a company that puts together a device using component parts bought from other organisations.

Asteria Aerospace “develops software solutions for visualization and analysis to convert aerial data from drones into actionable intelligence” for defence, security agencies, civil government agencies and private-sector companies.  The company is also working in the sectors of agriculture, oil and gas, energy, telcom, mining and construction.

It signed a MoU with Drone Destination, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) pilot training company at the recently-held Drone Festival in Delhi.

Startup promotion

Ashok Wadhawan, the head of land systems in Adani Defence and Aerospace, told TOI that the company is currently promoting startups in the sector and is looking at manufacturing a logistics drone which can carry a payload of up to 120 kg apart from developing agricultural drones.

The Adani Defence Systems and Technologies has already announced its plan to acquire 50 per stake in Bengaluru-based drone company General Aeronautics to develop drones for the agriculture sector.

Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India, a joint venture by Adani Group and Israeli company Elbit is also among the 14 beneficiaries under the government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to manufacture drone and drone components.

The company in 2018 entered India’s defence sector to introduce the Hermes 900 multi-role UAV, a medium-altitude long endurance, battle-proven drone for all terrains.

“Now as we enter the civil side, we will grow taking both the organic and inorganic route,” Wadhawan has told the media.

Rules liberalised

The Centre’s liberalised rules for the drone industry would help these companies develop and assemble UAVs for the civil sector. The Drone Rules, 2021 have liberalised approvals for the operation and manufacture of drones to enable their usage in all sectors, starting from farming to e-commerce deliveries.

“We are in direct touch with drone operators and manufacturers. Many of them are interested in making or assembling it in India. There is an opportunity to make about 70 per cent (in terms of value) of drone components in India,” a senior government official told ET.

So far, there are 270 drone startups in India.

“New Delhi is currently looking to select anchor investors that will herald the way forward for this industry, which holds huge potential now that the drone rules have been significantly liberalized,” another official said.

To ensure hassle-free operation, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has created a Digital Sky single-window platform which would take care of various activities related to the management of UAVs in India. The platform includes features such as applying for a remote pilot certificate, application for stating report pilot training organization, pilot certificate and flight plan submission among others.

Industry body Ficci which predicts a widespread usage of drones in the near future in fields such as defence, agriculture, supply chain, infrastructure and mobility, has pegged the market potential for drones in India at ₹3 lakh crore. It says nearly two-thirds of the investments is likely to come from the local manufacturing, fructifying the BJP government’s vision of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’.