Ashwini Phadnis

New Delhi, Aug. 26 Two-wheeler major Hero Group plans to diversify into making small aircraft for both personal use and training purposes.

The company is in the final stages of tying up with a German company, which will provide the design for the aircraft project, industry sources told Business Line.

The project will come up at the 300-acre Special Economic Zone in Madhya Pradesh, which is to be developed into an aerospace and defence industrial park.

“The project site will have a 1.5-km-long private air strip around which the aerospace and defence industrial park will come up. An announcement about the project is expected in mid-September,” sources said.

Germany has a host of companies involved in aircraft development including Daimler Benz Aerospace and Deustche Airbus.

The Hero Group, though synonymous with two-wheelers in India, has a footprint in other areas including product designing, IT-enabled services, finance and insurance.

The move to venture into aviation sector comes at a time when several corporates are seeking to acquire personal jets to make better use of their working day. Even the leading players in the global private jet market such as Bombardier, Cessna and Raytheon say that they are not only getting queries but are seeing an increasing number of corporates converting them into orders.

“These machines allow corporates to pack in more in a working day. A private aircraft allows corporates to fly when they wish, land at strips where there might not be a commercial service and conduct business even as they jet from one part of country to another or from one part of the globe to another,” explained an official with a private aircraft manufacturing company.

In the recent times the Government has permitted a host of corporates including the GMR Group and Punj Lloyd to import personal jets.

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