Mumbai: The budget offered minor concessions to the MRO - maintenance, repair and overhaul industry as the government has increased the time period for consumption or installation of parts and testing equipments imported for maintenance, repair and MRO of aircrafts by units engaged in such activities form the existing three months to a year.
Calling MRO as a nascent industry in India the finance minister said the sector has been offered some concessions. The move is likely to benefit home-grown MRO firms such as Airworks, Indmar and firms like GMRBSE -3.24 % that has an establishment for such jobs at Hyderabad with a foreign partner.
The MRO industry says the move is the first big step in the right direction and will help the industry to compete with the MRO firms in the region like in Dubai and Colombo and Singapore. State owned airline Air India that is the only airline in the country allowed to take third party MRO jobs is likely to benefit as well. The airline recently hived off this division as a separate business unit. The import duty is about 19% on the spares and equipment.
28/02/13 Manisha Singhal/Economic Times
