India has officially begun work on Electric Hansa (E-Hansa), a next-generation two-seater electric trainer aircraft. The announcement was made by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology, Dr Jitendra Singh, during a high-level review meeting with top science department officials at the Science Centre in Delhi on Tuesday.

Dr Singh praised the initiative, highlighting that the aircraft is being developed indigenously by the CSIR–National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bengaluru.

Advertisement

He further noted that the aircraft, being developed with a budget of nearly ₹2 crore, will cost almost 50 per cent less than comparable imported trainer aircraft. The project falls under the HANSA-3 (Next Generation) programme.

The key objective, he said, is to build cost-effective, indigenously developed training aircraft to meet the rising demand for skilled pilots in India’s rapidly expanding aviation sector.

India’s E-Hansa aircraft will also mark a key step towards India’s green aviation goals and the use of green or clean energy fuel in running our aircraft, said the Minister.

Further, the meeting focused on performance assessment, implementation status of prior decisions, and setting the course for transformative reforms in India’s science and technology ecosystem.

The meeting was attended by prominent officials, including Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, N Kalaiselvi, DG and Secretary CSIR; V Narayanan, Chairman ISRO and Secretary DoS; Abhay Karandikar, Secretary DST; Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary DBT; M Ravichandran, Secretary Earth Sciences; M Mohapatra, DG IMD; and Amit Rastogi, CMD NRDC, along with senior officials from the Department of Atomic Energy.