New Delhi: The Civil Aviation Ministry on April 20 released the names of 14 drone companies selected as beneficiaries of the PLI scheme. Idea Forge as well as Adani-Elbit Advanced System, a joint venture between Adani Group and Elbit Systems, Israel are among the 14 beneficiaries that have been selected under the Centre’s production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for manufacture of drones and drone components.
The fourteen selected beneficiaries includes five drone manufacturers and nine drone component manufacturers. The Union Civil Aviation Ministry had invited applications for manufacture of drone and drone components last month (March 10), based on which the provisional list of beneficiaries was released on April 20, Wednesday. Adani–Elbit will get PLI benefits as a drone component manufacturer.
The five drone manufacturing companies are Dhaksha Unmanned Systems, Idea Forge Technology, IoTech Avigation; Omnipresent Robot Technologies and Raphe Mphibr. The drone component manufacturing companies Adani-Elbit, Paras Aerospace, Absolute Composites, Alpha Design Technologies, SASMOS HET Technologies and ZMotion Autonomous Systems, Androitec Information Systems, Zuppa Geo Navigation Technologies and Inventgrid India.
Under the PLI scheme that was announced last year, the incentive for a manufacturer of drones and drone components will be 20% of the “value addition” made by the company during the next three years. The value addition is calculated as the annual sales revenue from drones and drone components minus the purchase cost of drone and drone components.
The PLI Scheme for drone and drone component manufacturing was notified in September last year with a total incentive of Rs 120 crore spread over three financial years; nearly double the total turnover of all domestic drone makers in FY21. Eligibility criteria includes that applicants under the scheme should have an annual turnover (sales) of Rs 2 crore for drone companies; Rs 50 lakh annual turnover for drone component manufacturers; and value addition of 40 per cent of sales turnover.
According to the government statement, the list of beneficiaries is likely to be expanded further since some more manufacturers are likely to exceed the eligibility criteria for the full financial year 2021-22. The final list of PLI beneficiaries is expected to be released by June 30 after detailed scrutiny of their financial results and other specified documents.
A unique feature of drone PLI, as per government officials, is if a manufacturer fails to meet the value addition threshold in 2021-22, then he will be allowed to claim the lost incentive on the subsequent year if they make up for the shortfall.
