Google To Establish Drone Manufacturing facility in India

A meeting between officials from Google's parent company Alphabet and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin provided a boost to Indian drone producers. According to reports, the tech giant intends to establish a drone manufacturing facility in the southern state.

The Indian government's attempts to grow the business look to be yielding results. In 2021, the government provided a Rs 120 crore subsidy under the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) plan for drone and component manufacturers. Then, in the Interim Budget 2024-25, released earlier this year, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman upped the outlay for the sector under the PLI plan to Rs 57 crore from Rs 33 crore the year before. 

In 2022, then-Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Singh Thakur stated that India aspires to become a global leader in drone production. He announced the Drone Yatra 2.0 plan, which will deploy drones to communities to spray pesticides on farmland, and stated that the country would need at least 100,000 drone pilots by 2023. As a result, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) approved 63 remote pilot training firms in 2023. 

“The entry of a tech giant is expected to liberalise the ecosystem as such companies accelerate partnerships. Also, it will generate new jobs such as testing pilots, engineers, etc.,” says Amandeep Panwar, Co-Founder and Director of agritech firm BharatRohan.