The government recently introduced liberal rules Further production linked incentives of Rs 120 crore for this sector (more) plans to boost manufacturing, a senior government official said.
Government aims to attract investment of Rs 5,000 crore free manufacturing in the next three years.
Amber Dubey, Joint Secretary ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) told reporters on Saturday that the ministry is already looking at investor interest for drone startups.
“Venture capitalists have suddenly noticed and we are getting a lot of inquiries as well. The government will never get into the business of giving investment advice, but when we show them our overall policy direction, they are getting a lot of confidence,” Dubey said.
Announcing the PLI scheme, the government had said that the drone manufacturing industry could reach Rs 900 crore to Rs 900 crore in FY21, and 10,000 direct jobs would be created in the process.
The government expects the service industry to grow to Rs 30,000 crore arising from drones in the next three years, while creating over 500,000 lakh jobs in functions such as drone operations, drone logistics management, data processing and traffic management. years.
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So far, venture investors have largely stayed away from backing Indian drone startups, largely because of a lack of clarity around regulations after the country made it illegal to fly drones for civilian applications in December 2018.
According to data intelligence firm Tracxn, only $42 million has been invested in Indian drone startup Between 2011 and 2021, compared to about $4 billion in the United States and $6.2 billion globally. In addition, the number of drone startups in India There were about 158 of the 2,772 such firms worldwide.
Smit Shah, director of partnerships at the Drone Federation of India, which represents over 200 drone manufacturers and service providers in the country, said, “Several Indian drone startups are currently in talks to raise Series A funding, not just angel investments. ”
Shah said investor sentiment – which had turned worse due to ambiguity around the rules – has now reversed.
Infosys,
Who has invested in Mumbai-based IdeaForgeAarav at Unmanned Systems, and 3one4 Capital, are among the few investors who have backed drone startups so far.
more recently,
InfoEdge backs Bengaluru’s Skylark drone, co-led a $3 million pre-Series A round in the company. Indian Angel Network and Bloom Ventures are other well-known VC’s Who has supported drone startups in India.
Dubey said, “Services will always be 20, 30 or 50 times the size of the manufacturing industry, so we are expecting investments in the drone services portion to be three to five times what we are expecting on the manufacturing side. will be more.” . “I’m seeing a lot of interest from the investment community.”
India, he said, needs to catch up with China and others who have pioneered drone manufacturing and services to industries other than agriculture, oil and gas, heavy industry, mining, law enforcement, defense and more.
Dubey said that the Ministry of Civil Aviation suggests that entrepreneurs working in this sector build for the world in India and not just for local needs, which is in line with the government’s goal of turning India into a drone hub by 2030. will help to achieve.
Talking about modified drones rules 2021 and previous rules are being repealed quickly, Dubey said, adding that it was done after receiving negative feedback from industry, academia and other government agencies.
Dubey told the press that drone rules By focusing solely on regulating drone registration and permissions, and bypassing import, privacy, insurance and the rest of the other sister laws that already exist.
“In this government, the UAS Rules, 2021 was the first to be repealed. Dubey said, ‘Yes, we made a mistake’ has the humility to say.
The previous rule, he said, was too restrictive because it was more for safety and security requirements at the time, as drones had previously been used to carry out attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.