Industry Consultation Held at NSTI Kanpur for Proposed Aeronautics Centre of Excellence under PM-SETU
The meeting was chaired by Debashree Mukherjee and attended by Dilip Kumar along with senior officials from DGT, representatives of the Uttar Pradesh Government’s Vocational Education & Skill Development Department, and delegates from leading industries and multilateral institutions.
More than 25 organisations from defence aerospace, civil aviation, manufacturing, and precision engineering sectors participated in the consultation. Key participants included Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Dassault Aviation India, Tata Advanced Systems, Bharat Electronics Limited, L&T Precision Engineering, Honda Motors, ICICI Foundation, as well as representatives from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
The discussions focused on enhancing industry participation in curriculum design, training delivery, infrastructure development, and apprenticeship opportunities to align vocational education with emerging aerospace industry requirements.
According to the Ministry, the proposed NCoE at NSTI Kanpur will be developed with active industry collaboration and will significantly strengthen training capacity in advanced manufacturing and aeronautics-related trades. The initiative is expected to help create a highly skilled workforce for India’s rapidly growing aerospace ecosystem.
The Ministry further stated that the Centre of Excellence, supported by industrial co-investment, Indo-French bilateral cooperation, and the PM-SETU framework, is envisioned as a model institution capable of training thousands of professionals annually in aeronautics and allied sectors. The initiative is also expected to contribute to India’s vision of self-reliance and global competitiveness in aerospace technologies.
MSDE also highlighted that PM-SETU Component-I follows a Hub-and-Spoke model for strengthening regional skilling ecosystems. Under this model, ITI clusters across Uttar Pradesh, including Aliganj, Saket, Pandu Nagar Kanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Agra, Naini Prayagraj, Varanasi, and Chargawan Gorakhpur, will function through hub ITIs mentoring a network of spoke ITIs to improve training quality and industry linkages.
The consultation is part of the Government of India’s broader efforts under the PM-SETU scheme to modernise Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and deepen industry collaboration in vocational education and skill development.