New Delhi: The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have done path-breaking research on drones, but it will take 7-8 years before India can become self-reliant in the assembly of UAVs, said Dr Pawan Goenka, Steering Committee head and chairman of the board of governors, IIT Madras. For the first time, all the 23 IITs, are coming together for an R&D fair to be held on October 14-15. Goenka heads the R&D committee which is taking this initiative forward.

Speaking to the media, the former IIT-Kanpur alumni said, “As of today, all components required for the assembly of drones are imported. There is significant effort being put in by the GOI, led by the Ministry of Electronics and Information technology (MEITY) and the Steering Committee for Advancing Local Value-Add and Exports (SCALE), where we are trying to see how we can localise the components of drones, whether it is a propeller system, composites or cameras.”

“We are working on a system to slowly create an industry for this subsystem which then feeds into the assembly of the drones. This is not a two-year effort, it probably may take up to 7-8 years. Government of India is supporting the drone manufacturing ecosystem through the dedicated PLI.” he said. “The reality is, Chinese costs are untouchable because of their scale and overall efficiency. First, it will take time for India to get the kind of scale we require to bring costs down. Here, technology is not going to be the issue, but scale and cost-effectiveness when compared to China.”

On the recent trials of 5G testbed at IIT-Madras, Goenka said, “IIT Madras has been at the forefront of developing the 5G technology. The problem however will be for the telecom operators to choose the newly-developed indigenous technology over the tried and tested technology available elsewhere.”