The project of national importance which aimed at building a 90-seater aircraft with state of the art technology has not moved much beyond the files even after four years of its inception. India’s ambitious plan to develop a national civil aircraft to reduce dependence on imports for procurement of planes and associated services has remained a non-starter, a parliamentary panel has said expressing concern over the delay. The project of national importance which aimed at building a 90-seater aircraft with state of the art technology has not moved much beyond the files even after four years of its inception.
Technology
The parliamentary standing committee on science and technology, which reviewed the performance of the department of scientific and industrial research, further noted that though the country has mastered space technology, it is yet to develop technology for a commercial aircraft.
“The committee is extremely disappointed that a programme of great importance such as the national civil aircraft development programme has made very little, rather no progress during the last four years,” said the parliamentary panel. The panel has urged the department to intensify its efforts for effective operationalisation of the programme while taking note of the complexities involved in the project. The panel has also asked the government to allocate sufficient funds so the programme is not further delayed. The national civil aircraft programme had been included as a new scheme in the 12th Five-Year Plan of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research with an initial allocation of Rs 10 crore in 2012-13. The CSIR and the National Aerospace Laboratories had done a feasibility study for developing a 70-90-seater civil aircraft.
No funds
However, in 2013 and 2015, the department of scientific and industrial research informed the panel that they were unable to initiate the programme as the nodal agency for its implementation was yet to be identified. When asked the reason for delay in indentifying a nodal agency, the panel was told that no financial allocation was made for the programme in 2015-16 and 2016-17. The department had told the panel that financial constraints during 2012-13 and 2014-15 led to reduced allocations to CSIR. However, the panel noted that there was some hope for the project as an in-principle agreement has been reached between the Hindustan Aeronautics, Bengaluru, and NAL to set up a special purpose vehicle for developing the national civil aircraft.
Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/
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