Paving way for the country's first defence industrial corridor in Uttar Pradesh, the ministry of defence will be holding a meeting with all stakeholders on August 11. The department of defence production, under the ministry of defence, will organise the event at Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. Aligarh is one of the six nodal points of the defence industrial corridor in UP. The corridor would pass through six districts—Aligarh, Agra, Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow and Chitrakoot.
The announcement to develop two defence industrial production corridors to promote the defence sector was made in the Union budget 2018. Second corridor is being built between Chennai and Bengaluru, connecting Kattupalli port, Chennai, Tiruchi, Coimbatore and Hosur.
To enhance the operational capability of the defence forces, the defence corridor is planned like a route along which domestic manufacturing units of defence equipment by public sector, private sector and MSMEs are lined up.
During the upcoming meet, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be interacting with the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Officials from the ministry of defence and state government will also be present along with senior representatives from the defence public sector undertakings, Ordnance Factories and DRDO.
“There will be an exhibition of products which are planned to be indigenised over the next five years. Interactive sessions with Ambassadors of several countries and captains of the Indian defence industries and the industry associations have also been planned during the event," said a defence ministry official.
Early in the month, the Uttar Pradesh cabinet chaired by chief minister gave approval to the UP Defence, Aerospace Unit and Employment Promotion Policy, 2018. An official said that the Defence Industrial Corridor of UP has the potential to attract investment worth Rs 50,000 crore and create 2.5 lakh jobs in the next five years. In the Bundelkhand region, almost 3,000 hectares of land has been identified for the corridor by UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority.