Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor has attracted Rs 3000 crore of investment through pledges and commitments for several projects. To give a fillip to the investor interest, the state is also expecting tax breaks and incentives from the upcoming national budget.
The industrial corridor was one among two announced in the 2018-19 national budget and is planned around six nodes or centres of Lucknow, Kanpur, Jhansi, Agra Aligarh, Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh. The second industrial corridor runs through Tamil Nadu.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the UP corridor in 2019 and the defence ministry organized the biennial DefExpo in Lucknow last year to attract investments and showcase the state to foreign investors.
The aim of the project is to spur job creation as well as to encourage foreign and domestic companies to support defence manufacturing in India.
According to officials in New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, Rs 1,500 crore of investment has been pledged for the Aligarh node with companies allotted almost all of the 76 hectares of land procured for the project. According to the UP government’s website, 32 preliminary agreements have been signed so far between private firms and the state government.
The projects being considered include those for the manufacture of components, aircraft engines, airframes, the design and development of drones, swarms and electronic warfare systems besides communication equipment and ammunition.
The state government has been working on land acquisition for the other centres with 94 per cent of the land in Jhansi, 81 per cent in Kanpur and 96 per cent in Chitrakoot having either being bought or requisitioned for the corridor, said Awanish Awasthi, Uttar Pradesh Additional Chief Secretary in charge of the corridor project to Mint.
Some of the big names that have expressed interest in investing in the UP Corridor include the Tata group and Dassault Aviation of France, Awasthi said. In the Lucknow area, defence public sector units like Bengaluru-based Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and Hyderabad-based Bharat Dynamics Ltd have shown interest.
