The skies over Bangalore’s Yelahanka airbase thundered with the sound of fighter planes, helicopters, turboprops and other aircraft. As the biennial air show—its 2013 edition in February is considered Asia’s biggest-ever aviation event—was in action, one aircraft had a different flight path: Business jet Embraer Phenom-100 made chartered flights to Belgaum. Perhaps it was the right time for Quest Global Inc to show potential customers that the aerospace hub it has been building is ready for take-off.
On the outskirts of Belgaum, nearly 500 km from Banglaore, is the 300-acre special economic zone (SEZ) set up by Quest. Driving through the beautiful landscape, it is difficult to believe it could soon be the most sophisticated industrial belt in the region. It is already notified as the state’s first precision engineering region. “You can walk away from this place with a finished [aerospace/automotive] product without stepping out of this facility,” says Aravind Melligeri, co-founder and chief executive of Quest Global Inc, the manufacturing arm of Quest Global Engineering. No other facility in India, other than state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics, can claim such a design-to-build capability in aerospace.
19/05/13 Seema Singh/Forbes India.com
