In what is a “potential game-changer in Indian Aviation,” Airports Authority of India (AAI), under the leadership of Guruprasad Mohapatra, is setting up a world-class Civil Aviation Research Organisation (CARO) at Begumpet Airport, Hyderabad, aimed at finding indigenous solutions to meet the challenges posed by the growing air traffic and for enhancing safety, capacity and efficiency of aircraft operations in the country.
Suresh Prabhu, Hon’ble Union Minister of Commerce and Industries and Civil Aviation, laid the foundation stone for the futuristic CARO, on July 5, 2018, in the presence of prominent people from the industry, academia, research institutions and senior AAI officials.
Widening its R&D horizon, this facility, spread across a sprawling area of 27 acres, will cater to ANS and Airport/Engineering research. AAI has earmarked a whopping budget outlay of Rs. 1200 crore for a period of 12 years for R&D.
The state-of-the-art CARO will house world-class infrastructure equipped with simulators and is likely to be completed in two to three years time.
AAI has chalked out a futuristic strategy and has selected and enrolled Associate Members of R&D from across all AAI airports with the objective of exploiting domain expertise available in-house.
Hon’ble Union Minister of Civil Aviation praised the landmark initiative of AAI in setting up CARO and the readiness of industry partners like Boeing and Honeywell and academic institutions for collaborative research with AAI.
He stated that the need of the hour is to find solutions through research for enhancing safety, convenience of passenger and capacity through resource optimisation, particularly in view of the infrastructural constraints. The minister sounded optimistic that with the setting up of CARO, India will be well placed to handle the burgeoning air traffic situation with passenger trips likely to increase from 200 million to a billion in the foreseeable future.
Speaking at the occasion, RN Choubey, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, praised the efforts of AAI in laying the foundation stone for CARO in an incredibly short time and in line with the vision of the Government of India for New India 2022. He impressed upon CARO to take up research work on four priority areas, namely, increasing airports throughput with the existing infrastructural limitations, airspace optimisation, cost-effective infrastructure solutions for the upcoming 56 RCS airports and integrating drones in civil airspace.
The aviation industry hopes that AAI’s CARO will enable a vibrant ecosystem in Indian aviation, where a convergence of minds, ideas and innovations – from research institutes, think tanks, industry players, academia, international ANS/Airport entities to aviation stakeholders – culminates in the development, testing and validation of concepts, technologies and solutions benefitting civil aviation as a whole.