India will need nearly ,000 civil helicopters in the next five to eight years, more than four times the existing fleet of around 250, creating a large domestic market for indigenous helicopter manufacturers, Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said on Friday.

Addressing an event here where Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) handed over four Dhruv Next Generation (NG) civil helicopters, Naidu said the indigenous 5.5-tonne twin-engine helicopter could play a key role in expanding India’s civilian helicopter ecosystem.“Today India operates around 250 civil helicopters across the country, but with the growing needs and growing capabilities of the country, we see that we are going to need 1,000 civil helicopters in the next five to eight years,” he said.

Naidu urged HAL to accelerate deliveries, saying the market for the Dhruv NG was already available.HAL has placed an order for 10 Dhruv NG helicopters, of which four were handed over at the event, and the Minister requested the company to deliver the remaining six at the earliest.“We have a very good market right now for helicopters. So as fast as you can deliver, we can put them out in the market,” he said.Naidu said the Dhruv NG could support several civilian applications, including offshore energy exploration, emergency medical services, connectivity to remote areas, highway operations, religious tourism, heli-tourism and government logistics.

He said the government planned to develop around 200 helipads over the next decade under the modified UDAN scheme and was working towards having a heliport in every district.Calling for stronger civil-defence aerospace synergy, Naidu said technologies developed for the defence sector should increasingly be adapted for civilian aviation.“Whenever we want to make an order, the first thing civil aviation is looking at is some of the other countries.

But today, thanks to the efforts of HAL, when we need something, we are first saying, let us look inside the country. Let us look at HAL,” he said.Naidu said India was targeting the manufacture of a civilian aircraft domestically within two years, with HAL expected to play an important role.“I am very much sure that the vision of Make in India civilian aircraft also is going to come true very soon for us,” he said.He cited the C-295 aircraft manufacturing programme in Vadodara as evidence of India’s growing aircraft manufacturing capability and said similar capabilities needed to be developed for civil aviation.

The Minister said HAL’s Dornier 228 had already demonstrated the potential of indigenous aircraft in regional connectivity, particularly in the Northeast, where it currently connects Guwahati and Itanagar.“Airbus and Boeing cannot go into that area. Our Dornier, which is manufactured by HAL, is proudly flying into those difficult sectors in the Himalayan and hilly regions,” he said, adding that India needed more such aircraft.Naidu said DGCA and CEMILAC were working towards simultaneous certification of the NAL Saras Mark 2 aircraft, while the Hansa trainer aircraft was expected to meet the requirements of flying training organisations.

He said the government had also streamlined helicopter operations through the HeliSewa portal and created a dedicated helicopter directorate within the DGCA.Naidu described the Dhruv NG as an important milestone in India’s aerospace manufacturing journey, reflecting indigenous capabilities across design, development, testing, certification and production.He also lauded HAL’s engineering and indigenisation capabilities and said the civilian aviation sector should derive greater benefit from technologies developed by India’s defence aerospace industry.