After the successful meeting of the stakeholders of defence equipment manufacturing sector at Aligarh in August, the Yogi Adityanath government is organising a mega event in Kanpur in October to showcase the de-licensed defence wares for private sector manufacturing. The mega event is part of promotion of the defence industrial corridor in UP that will pass through six districts — Aligarh, Agra, Kanpur, lucknow, Jhansi and Chitrakoot. The last two districts are in Bundelkhand region.
Kanpur defence exhibition and buyer-seller meet was actually proposed to be held in July. However it was postponed because of other big-ticket events, visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to UP and preparation for the monsoon session of the state legislature.
The Prime Minister, during his visit, had participated in the groundbreaking ceremony for the launch of projects worth Rs 60,000 crore. The memorandums of understanding (MoUs) for these projects were signed by the UP government with the investors during the UP Investors’ Summit held in lucknow in February this year.
UP Industries Development Minister Satish Mahana said that the Kanpur show would bring defence public sector undertakings (PSUs) and private companies on a single platform for knowledge sharing, apart from showcasing the entire range of de-licensed defence inventory now open for private manufacturing.
Senior officials of the three wings of defence forces and defence PSUs will also participate in the show, the dates of which would soon be announced, the minister added.
Events related to the proposed defence industrial corridor had recently been organised in Jhansi and Aligarh in which Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath were present. The Kanpur show is touted to be the biggest so far in this respect.
Mahana said the state had identified 3,000 hectares of land for the corridor, which has been projected to attract direct investments to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore and generate 2.5 lakh jobs.
In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the initiative to transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub. Among the 25 key sectors, defence manufacturing was also identified for this initiative. Under the Prime Minister’s larger vision of pushing Make in India, the Defence Ministry has taken multiple measures to promote indigenisation in the defence industry. In the 2018 Union budget, two defence corridors were announced, for Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
Earlier, the Centre had de-licensed 275 defence-related wares and encouraged domestic private sector manufacturers to supply them to the forces by competing with public sector undertakings (PSU).
The PSUs had enjoyed monopoly over these products which are to the tune of billions of rupees. These items are dubbed ‘non-core items’ of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB). Now, such procurement does not require a no-objection certificate (NoC) from the OFB.
For procuring these wares, the army can float tenders, in which OFB can also participate apart from interested private firms.
The Bundelkhand defence industrial corridor was announced by Modi while inaugurating the UP Investors’ Summit 2018 on February 21 in lucknow. The Defence Ministry had also announced to make substantial investment in Bundelkhand region. The central investment will be made for creating necessary infrastructure, such as ammunition blast testing centre. Meanwhile, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) has been engaged by UP to establish a centre of excellence for the Bundelkhand defence industrial corridor. The proposed facility entails an investment of Rs 300 crore.