Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar inaugurated the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s (HAL) Centre for Aerospace Management Excellence & Leadership at Marathahalli, Bengaluru, on December 15. Addressing the gathering, he said HAL being the only aerospace giant in India, this new facility is the right step in training human resources to ensure the success of ‘Make in India’. This new learning and development centre can become a focus of technology and management expertise in India, he added.

T. Suvarna Raju, CMD HAL, said the new state-of-the-art learning centre would promote technical skills, project management and competencies, product design and development. “This reinvigorated focus will help to achieve our goals and build a robust aerospace ecosystem in India”, he added.

The campus is being built on an area of 5.2 hectares with 25,300 sq m built up area at Marathahalli adjacent to ISRO campus. It is an integrated campus with separate blocks for training, hostel, canteen, sports, auditorium and meditation hall. It will be a world-class facility and will promote design and engineering excellence with state-of-the-art infrastructure. The salient features include computer labs, library and discussion halls, state-of-the-art classrooms with high quality audio and video systems with streaming facility, hostel block with 300 twin-sharing executive accommodation with 150 rooms including swimming pool, sports complex with indoor badminton court, table tennis and gymnasium and outdoor basketball and tennis court, traditional model auditorium with balcony for a seating capacity of 800, canteen block with a seating capacity of 500 and meditation hall in a serene ambience to accommodate 100 people.

HAL Management Academy (HMA) is involved in the training of management and design trainees. It also provides learning and development opportunities for the middle and senior level executives. Most of the executives in HAL including the top management consisting of CMD, Directors, CEOs and GMs start their journey from HMA and they go through various technical and managerial training programmes. At present, the academy functions from its existing premises on Suranjan Das Road near HAL manufacturing facilities in Bengaluru.