'Use of Robotics Increasing in India'

BENGALURU: The Narendra Modi-led NDA government’s big push to the manufacturing sector may actually bring a windfall for educational institutions abroad. It is likely to offer courses relating to robotics and automation, a subject in which the availability of trained trainers in India does not even remotely match the demand.

Dr Hongwei Zhang from the Department of Engineering and Mathematics, Sheffield Hallam University, South Yorkshire, England, believes that automation and robotics are catching on rapidly, more so in the automobile industry. In India, it’s happening at a faster rate, he said.

Globally, the use of robots is growing at the rate of 6.73 per cent per annum. In India, it has been growing around 12 per cent, he added.

This has also means an increasing need for producing specialists to teach these disciplines.

“By 2020, globally, it’s expected to be a $202 billion industry,” Zhang told Express citing a published data.

After a slight slowdown and lull over the last four to five years, now there is a rise in demand for courses abroad. Also, there is a growing demand for courses relating to robotics and automation from India, said Zhang.

While 2,100 industrial robots were sold in India in 2014, by 2018, their numbers could rise to 6,000. Hence, there will be a rising demand for people to manage the robots or develop solutions for them.

Zhang was in Bengaluru on Sunday as part of a British delegation that included faculty members from several top universities in the UK that are in India trying to woo Indian students to take up their courses.

They have been holding exhibitions across the country.