NEW DELHI, June 17: The Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Saturday that BrahMos missiles, drones and electronic warfare systems would be manufactured and assembled in the Uttar Pradesh defence corridor and “not just nuts and bolts.”
The Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor (UPDIC) is an aspirational project that intends to reduce the dependence of the Indian aerospace and the defence sectors on foreign suppliers.
“What is important is that in the UP defence corridor, not only nuts and bolts or spare parts will be manufactured, (but) drones, UAVs, electronic warfare (systems), aircraft and BrahMos missiles will also be manufactured and assembled,” Singh told a gathering at an event in Lucknow on “Atmanirbhar Bharat.”
The Defence Minister said an “enabling” environment has been prepared for defence manufacturing through defence corridors in UP and Tamil Nadu.
About the UPDIC, Singh said, “I have been told that for this corridor, the land which is planned to be acquired is around 1,700 hectare. Of this, more than 95% of land has already been acquired.” Of this, 36 industries and institutions have been allotted nearly 600 hectare of land, he said, adding that 109 MoUs have been signed, with an estimated investment value of more than ₹16,000 crore.
So far, investment of about ₹2,500 crore has been made in the UPDIC by various entities, Singh said. The UPDIC took off to an encouraging start with the announcement of investments worth over ₹3,700 crore in defence production at a meet organised in Aligarh in 2018. Six nodes — Agra, Aligarh, Chitrakut, Jhansi, Kanpur and Lucknow — have been identified for developing the UPDIC.
(Manas Dasgupta)