SKILLED TO PERFORM

As Indian industry moves away from the support and upgrade of legacy Russian origin defence equipment and towards the indigenous design and development of advanced defence equipment with sophisticated Western technologies, it must have access to a skilled workforce capable of producing such advanced defence equipment at high rates. This will be especially relevant in areas such as Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) of defence equipment.

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Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) and private defence companies are cognisant of the challenges in upskilling the workforce; however, much needs to be done. As per an aerospace industry expert, "Today, in industries such as A&D, only a small portion of the workforce is fully trained and qualified. Employers are forced to allocate significant resources to upskill new engineers and make them ready for work. Most graduates are not immediately employable, hence it is essential that collaboration between industry and academia align educational outcomes with industry needs."

It would appear that at the moment, domestic skill development efforts are more broad-based and focused on the conventional A&D sector for the manufacture of aircraft, helicopters, tanks, missiles and armoured vehicles, etc. As per the aerospace industry expert, "at present the focus is on skill development to support existing A&D programmes, but in future, this will also involve sector-specific manufacturing skill development initiatives."

Skill Development Initiatives

One of the highlights in aerospace and defence skill development efforts is the HAL-IISc Skill Development Centre (SDC), which was established in 2020 and was the product of a unique collaboration between the two entities to impart high-end skills in manufacturing, especially in the aerospace sector. The Karnataka Innovation & Technology Society (KITS), a Government of Karnataka enterprise along with Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) in association with Dassault Systems India Pvt Ltd., has also established the K-Tech Centre of Excellence (COE) in Aerospace and Defence with the objective of skill development and providing industry with trained manpower to the aerospace industry in Bengaluru and Belagavi in Karnataka.